Child's Play: A Montessori Book Review by Marie Mack


Info graphic with young boy sitting at a table and playing with a toy truck

Child's Play: Montessori games and activities for your baby and toddler is the perfect book for any new Montessori family. The easy-to-follow Montessori activities allow parents and teachers to entertain and teach children through purposeful play.  As a Montessori Momma, it is awesome to see so many wonderful resources available. Child's Play is one of the first books I added to our collection.  


Book cover for 'Child's Play' (with a toddler doing a downward dog style handstand wearing an orange shirt and blue jeans.
Photo from Amazon

The Child's Play: Montessori games and activities for your baby and toddler book is 159 pages of awesome activities and templates. I love that the activities are divided by chapters like coordination and out and about. The chapters open with a development timeline with the appropriate age level listed. This helps parents understand their child's developmental level.

The activities are typically one to two pages long with pictures to accompany descriptions. (Quick and easy for busy moms to read over!) The activities have a list of materials needed and step-by-step instructions. Each activity has listed the suggested age for the activity, but it is stressed to know your child's abilities. Some children are ready for harder activities sooner than others.   

Young boy sitting at a table and playing with a toy truck.

My son was 18 months old when we put together an activity out of this book called The Wacky Races. The age for this activity was listed as 1+ and we found all the materials in my craft boxes. Total price to put this together, zero! Re-purposing is my middle name.

A young boy wearing an apron and standing at a table, stirring batter with a spoon.

Part of The Wacky Races is to make play dough to use as the track. Samuel helped me make the playdough recipe which was also an activity in the Arts and Crafts chapter of Child's Play. Although this did have some parts that needed a stove, Sam loved being a part of the process. 

I recommend this book to anyone working with infants and toddlers. After having two Montessori children this book has been heavily used and is always a go-to for rainy-day activities. We have also adapted some of the activities like making a Treasure Map and Role Play for Samuel now that he will be 4 on Sunday! (Where does the time go!) 

Happy Reading! ~Marie Mack

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And now for my top posts!

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