Muffin Tin Numbers

(25 Months Old)

Yes, another activity for your muffin tin.  We purchased a set of kitchen tongs from the Dollar store (I love the Dollar store, don't you?) and already had on hand an old muffin tin, and 12 plastic balls.  For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to number the balls from 1 -12 so that they could not only practice going from left to right, and top to bottom, but also in number order.

It surprisingly didn't take them long to understand how to hold the tongs so that they could easily pick up and put down a ball into one of the muffin tin cups.  I thought we were going to need to practice manipulating the tongs for a little while, before adding the balls.

What did take constant reminding (I know Montessori Mommas, I'm not supposed to remind during work time - I have control issues, I'm working on it) was to go from left to right, and top to bottom.  I needed to keep my finger in the next tin cup for them to know which one was the next space.  The next time we do this activity, I'll think out loud as I model how to put the balls into the tin (and also how not to).

Both Little Miss and Wild One really enjoyed this work.  They kept asking to "count, count".  If it wasn't for Wild One's fascination with throwing objects inside the house, this would be on their shelves.