Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers: Montessori

How many egg cartons does it take to build a fort? First, stack cartons, then estimate how many were used, read books or play games inside, then knock them down and count them. Our fort was built with 172 egg cartons. We also stacked them in groups of 10 and counted by 10s having a great math visual.

Recycle Upcycle Egg Cartons to Building Blocks or Reading Fort

Blocks are a wonderful source for concrete mathematical learning. Young children will stack and knock down blocks over and over again because of the sensory rewards. The sight of the blocks falling is fun for a young child who is amazed by the effects of gravity. Egg cartons are light so knocking them down is harmless and could release stress. Block play can be rich in parent/child activity and filled with touch, sight, sound, repetition and imagination.

Maria Montessori, a pioneer in early childhood education, emphasized the importance of concrete forms in math education between the ages of three and five. Math manipulatives (objects that can be sorted, patterned, counted) facilitates abstract thought needed later to compute numbers. Montessori recommended that young children constantly move objects, like blocks and beads, and use their senses while learning because it leads to a later desire to write out a mathematical operation.

If you don’t have wooden blocks, you can make your own blocks with tissue and cereal boxes, cool whip and yogurt containers, oatmeal and coffee canisters, and even egg cartons. For added weight, pack newspaper and seal containers with tape. For interesting sounds, add some dried beans, rice, marbles, or small rocks. For a more permanent fort, tape with masking tape.

Learning with Blocks

Pattern: Lay out a pattern with different colored, shaped or sized blocks and ask, “What comes next?” Recognizing and predicting patterns is an important logic and math skill.
Imaginative Play: Encourage your child to make something with blocks using their imagination and creativity. You could read a book such as Block City to help them devise a block building plan. Add something else to block play such as a toy car to drive on top of a line of blocks or action figures or dolls for fantasy play.
Vocabulary: Name the different block shapes and point out similar shapes around the room. Place a number card beside blocks such as #1 with 1 block, #2 with 2 blocks so that they grasp the concept of quality with a visual and sound of the number. Teach opposites: big/small, heavy/light, short/tall, up/down, in/out, few/many, under/over.
Measurement: To extend mathematical concepts, use a tape measure, ruler or yardstick and note differences in the sizes of the blocks and structures. Your child will want to measure many things around the house or yard including people. Children enjoy having a special measuring place to chart their growth such as a closet.
Motor Movement: Use an empty laundry basket or box and toss blocks, counting as you toss. Run around the house looking for objects with a similar shape, size or color. Hide some blocks around the room playing a game of finding them, announcing the shape or color each time one is found. Then count how many.

The possibilities are endless of what can be built with blocks, Legos, Lincoln logs, egg cartons and empty food containers. You don’t need to keep buying more and more toys, but explore all the possibilities of what you already have.

Why do we have so many egg cartons? People give them to us because we have chickens!