Montessori Puzzle Maps
Learning in a Montessori Environment goes beyond boring notebooks and textbooks, and often involves the use of fun, tangible, and concrete Montessori Materials.
The Montessori Method of education integrates a diverse range of unique Montessori Materials that set your child on a path for optimum success and development.
The Montessori Puzzle Maps are a fun Montessori Material that helps children learn about basic geographical concepts.
Geography in Montessori is different from how geography is taught in other traditional educational institutions, in fact, the Montessori geography curriculum is often void of theoretical concepts and strives to provide children with tangible experiences.
Map Puzzles in Montessori help stimulate the learning of geographical concepts through visual and tangible mediums.
While Montessori toys and Montessori Materials look fairly simple to introduce and present, they often incorporate a set of rules to follow in order to develop a sense of discipline and structure.
If you as a parent or an immediate caregiver are interested in purchasing or curious to learn about Montessori Puzzle Maps, we got you covered.
Here is all you need to know about this fun and exciting Montessori Geography Material to help you facilitate Montessori Activities Involving Montessori Puzzle Maps.
Contents
What are the Montessori Map Puzzles Exactly?
Geography in Montessori Education goes beyond textbooks, diagrams, maps, and globes. The Montessori Method of education allows children to visually and tangibly explore complex geographical concepts.
The Montessori Map Puzzles are one such exciting and engaging Montessori Geography Material that allows children to embark on an enchanting explorative journey.
This fun Montessori Geography Material allows your child to indulge in multisensory open-ended play.
Montessori Map Puzzles are part of the Montessori geography curriculum that introduces the children to the continents of the world.
What does the Montessori Puzzle Maps Material Incorporate?
Montessori Puzzle Maps are an essential part of the Montessori Geography curriculum that provides children with a tangible representation of the contents of the world.
The components of this fascinating Montessori Geography Material are quite self-explanatory.
The Montessori Puzzle Maps are a fun and engaging Montessori Geography material that comes as a wooden shelf with different compartments containing different wooden maps of the world (hemispheric maps, globe maps, continents, countries).
This fun Montessori Material comes with a wooden hemisphere map of the world, globe-shaped maps of the world, continent cutouts, and their corresponding continent puzzle pieces with knobs.
Some Montessori Puzzle Maps also come with an overlay made from plastic with a straight line representing the equator.
Montessori Puzzle Maps also come with control maps with different countries and continents to help the child develop an intimate understanding of the world.
When are the Montessori Puzzle Maps Introduced to the Child?
Each Montessori Material has its own distinct use, purpose, and benefit to provide the child with age-appropriate sensorial stimuli.
Montessori Puzzle Maps just like any other Montessori Material is a fun and engaging Montessori Geography Material that stimulates the learning of geographical concepts.
This Montessori Material is an essential part of the Montessori Cultural and Geography curriculum.
Montessori Puzzle Maps are introduced to the child during their lower elementary levels when the child is between 3 to 6 years of age and has an absorbent mind.
What is the Purpose of the Montessori Puzzle Maps?
The Montessori Puzzle Maps are a great Montessori Geography that just like any other Montessori Material helps the child gradually develop the knowledge of geographical concepts.
Montessori Puzzle Maps help eliminate the use of memorization as a means to enhance the child’s vocabulary.
This Montessori Material provides the child with visual, concrete, and tangible stimuli to help them develop an intimate understanding of the concepts.
The chief aim of the Montessori Puzzle Maps is to allow the child to identify, recognize, and categorize the different continents of the world.
Since this activity is introduced to the child during their lower elementary level, they are able to absorb the information through visual and tangible sensory stimuli easily.
Another aim of Montessori Puzzle Maps is to facilitate the development of gross motor skills and fine motor skills.
Children are promoted to use their three-finger grip to manipulate the continent puzzles to develop their fine motor skills and maneuver components from the shelves to the work mats to develop their gross motor skills.
Lastly, the secondary and indirect aim of promoting activities involving Montessori Puzzle Maps is to develop the child’s vocabulary and language skills.
What are the benefits of Montessori Puzzle Maps?
Montessori puzzle maps take your child on an exciting learning journey to understand and identify the different continents of the world.
This fun Montessori Material is among the best ways to utilize the characteristics of the absorbent mind.
If you are a parent or an immediate caregiver who is interested in incorporating the Montessori puzzle maps but need to be made aware of its benefits, look no further.
Here is a list of the Montessori Puzzle Maps material to help you determine if you should incorporate this fun material at home or not:
Enhanced Vocabulary:
The chief benefit of the Montessori Puzzle Maps is to develop the child’s vocabulary pertaining to continents and countries of the world.
This fun Montessori material goes beyond maps and textbooks and allows your child to enhance their vocabulary by physically manipulating and maneuvering each component of the material.
With built-in control of error, children are provided with a key book demarcating the names of different countries and continents of the world.
Sensory Development:
Montessori puzzle Maps provide your child with a multisensory experience to help stimulate the learning of arbitrary and complex concepts.
Since going to different continents is not feasible, this fun Montessori Geography material brings continents into the classroom.
While most traditional educational institutions rely on rote memorization and two-dimensional maps to develop the child’s vocabulary, Montessori Puzzle Maps take a more tangible and three-dimensional approach.
The Montessori Puzzle Maps are a great way of developing visual and tactile senses in children.
Fine Motor Development:
Fine motor skills are abilities to utilize the smaller muscles present in the hands, wrists, and fingers to help individuals perform intricate tasks such as writing, gripping, holding, and grasping.
Montessori Puzzle maps fashion small knobs that are to be held with a three-finger pincer grip to develop the child’s fine motor skills.
The child is promoted to meticulously pick up each puzzle component with a pincer flip and place them into their corresponding cutouts.
Gross Motor Development:
Gross motor skills are abilities that involve the movement of the larger muscles present in the legs, arms, back, and torso.
The development of gross motor skills is an indirect aim of facilitating Montessori Puzzle Maps activities.
The child is promoted to pick up wooden map boards and place them back into their designated shelves or maneuver each component.
How to Introduce the Montessori Puzzle Maps?
Each and every Montessori activity and Montessori material has its own set of rules and steps of presentation.
These steps of presentation help ensure your child is on the path to optimum development without getting caught up or confused along the way.
The Montessori Puzzle maps are introduced to the child in a three-period lesson format starting from retrieving the puzzle activity to developing their vocabulary.
If you are a parent or an immediate caregiver who wants to introduce the Montessori Puzzle Maps material to the child, look no further.
Here are some steps of presentation to follow when introducing this activity to the child:
- Instruct the child to take out the Montessori Puzzle map with one hand on each side as well as the continent globe and place it on the work mat
- Turn the globe around and make sure the western hemisphere is visible to the child. Relate the hemisphere to the circle on the map
- Then turn the globe to the eastern hemisphere and relate the hemisphere to a circle on the map
- Tilt the globe toward Antarctica with half Antarctica visible on one side and half on the other
- Instruct the child to take out each piece of the puzzle one at a time
- Hold and review each continent from the puzzle map to the globe
- After revising and corresponding each puzzle with the globe, promote your child to take apart the puzzle.
- Set all the pieces on the work mat
- Once all the puzzle pieces are situated on the mat allow your child to recognize and place each puzzle into its corresponding cutout.