Teach Me to Do It Myself, Montessori activities for you and your child by Maja Pitamic: The Introduction includes: a Preface; "Who was Montessori"; "How to use this book"; and "Frequently asked questions" (seven in all).
There are five chapters with activities you can do at home or in a classroom setting: "Life Skills, Developing the Senses, Language Development, Numeracy Skills," and "Science Skills."
Each activity has a picture, a numbered list of directions, a list of "You will need," and "Other activities to try." Most activities include a "Tip box," a "Word activity" (language), and a "Safety Point."
In the back of the book are worksheets to use (copy) for making several of the activities shown in the book.
The "Life Skills" chapter includes activities for personal hygiene, dressing, polishing, pouring, spooning, tonging, open-close, threading, weaving, sewing cards, and cutting.
The "Developing the Senses" chapter includes activities for exploring textures and objects and learning about shape, size, height, length, color, sound, smell, and taste.
The "Language development" chapter includes guidelines to help you select books for your child and guidelines for reading to your child; activities for wordplay, phonics and learning the letters of the alphabet, word building (Moveable Alphabet), and picture cards (Reading Tablets); making phrases, sentences, a diary, a book, a family tree, and a picture poem.
The "Numeracy skills" chapter includes sorting, counting, and learning numbers one to ten, number sequencing, simple addition and subtraction, introducing money, and number songs.
The "Science skills" chapter includes leaf collecting, flower puzzles, planting, understanding volume, float and sink, the weather, geography including globe and map and landforms, mixing colors, and baking.
Worksheets (in the back of the book) for several of the activities shown in the book:
Learning height and length (similar to the Number Rods). Make color copies, enlarge them, and cut them out.
Two-dimensional shapes: geometric shapes, in black outline, of circles, squares, and triangles from largest to smallest. Make a copy and cut out shapes or make two copies for matching shapes.
Identifying letters: alphabet letters in black and white lowercase shown on the line. Make copies and cut them out. You can also color them in using red and blue markers or colored pencils for the Moveable Alphabet. You can also enlarge them when you make a copy for making the Sandpaper Letters.
Word building: black and white cards with pictures and three-letter short vowel phonetic words (six cards for each vowel for a total of 30 cards). Copy and cut them out for a Reading Tablets activity, or your own language creation. You can also color the pictures (recommended).
Constructing phrases: a list of articles, adjectives, verbs, and prepositions.
Make a flower puzzle: black and white drawing of a flower, and its parts in labels.
I give this book five stars out of five. It is well organized, full of information, and easy to understand with nice photos and drawings. The activities are those found in Montessori classrooms and can be duplicated at home. I think it is ideal for ages 2 1/2 to 5.
Recommended for parents who are new to Montessori education:
The Essential Montessori Updated Edition: an Introduction to the Woman, the Writings, the Method, and the Movement by Elizabeth Hainstock.
First published in 1978 (then again in 1986 and 1997), this book is a classic. (It was one of the first books I read about Montessori education.)
It explains all the basic aspects of Montessori education in easy-to-understand terms.
Another popular aspect of this book is how Hainstock makes Maria Montessori's sometimes dense and challenging-to-understand writings, more accessible. In fact, Hainstock is considered the first to "rewrite" Montessori philosophy and methodology to make it easier to comprehend.
At only 127 pages long, you can read it very quickly.
~Lisa Nolan
