Montessori Preschool at Home: Play Literacy Games

As a Montessori parent, my goal is to support my children's developmental needs here at home. While my children attend Montessori schools, so the bulk of their exposure to traditional Montessori materials is at school, I try to support that learning here at home in Montessori friendly ways. Generally, that means in ways that connect their interests to the things that they are interested in learning. Ideally, in the preschool years, I want to keep that learning concrete, make sure there is some control of error, and that it has some movement/sensorial component. 

Games are often a fun way to hook my kids in repeating skills that they are learning at school. Often when it comes to learning games, people think about math games. But, you can also play simple literacy games to practice sounds and reading words. Even in a Montessori classroom, games are used in many different content areas to get preschoolers interested in and coming back to work. 

Lately, we've been playing a lot of a game we call "silly or real." This is certainly not a concept I created but knowing that Ted (newly 5) is starting to master putting sounds together to make words I wanted to help him practice. I wanted something fun, but also something that involved things he likes - order, counting, and connecting schema play. 

To play this game: 

• Dump a bunch of letters (we used these connecting letter blocks) into a basket
• Randomly pick 2 consonants (for us blue pieces) and one vowel (the red)
• Put the pieces together in the pattern - blue, red, blue
• Sound out the word - determine if its a real word or a silly word 
• Sort silly and real into their own piles
• Repeat until all pieces are gone
• Count the number in each pile - pile with the most is the "winner"