DIY Montessori Animal Match Game

4 min read

It seems like my daughter SJ has outgrown most of her toys. She completes her puzzles in a few seconds and has lost all interest in her stacking towers. However, high quality toddler toys are not cheap. I am trying to implement Montessori principles at home and therefore limit the amount of toys that just have a few buttons to press and then light up and make noise. She will never learn as much and as easily as right now. Therefore, I want to give her items that will help her learn and develop her abilities.

When researching Montessori toys one inevitable comes across Lovevery. They are a company that sell subscription boxes that ship every few months with toys that are appropriate for the developmental stage of the child. However, they are quite pricey.

So, I just had a close look at what the box contains that would match SJs age right now. One of the items in the Companion Play Kit is a Montessori Animal Match game. I had read about it before in The Montessori Toddler (which I would highly recommend) and so I decided to attempt at making a DIY version!

DIY Montessori Animal Match Game

Just a disclaimer, this is not a complete DIY – I did not make the animals. I guess it would be possible to crochet them but if I had done that they Game would be complete by the time SJ starts school… Ha!

The animals

Instead, I bought some animals from the brand Schleich. I got them second hand via ebay. They are really lovely and last forever. And by thrifting them I saved a lot of money!

Once the animals arrived I had a little photo shoot with them! I put them on SJs dresser which is white, so that I would have a non-distracting background. My advice would be to use a tripod or prop up your phone or camera on a chair, so that you have the same distance to the camera each time. I did not do this and some of the sizes of the photos vary a little.

The animal cards

I then printed the photos, cut them into squares and stuck them onto coloured cardboard. They aren’t super thick but stable enough! Originally, I hadn’t planned to go with different colours but that was what I had in my stationary drawer. However, I now really like the colourful backs. They even provide SJ with another option of sorting the cards – by colour!

The bag

Finally, I wanted something to stow the DIY Montessori Animal Match game. For that, I sewed a little drawstring back from some scrap fabric I had in my stash. I cut the fabric into a rectangular shape first. Then, I finished the raw seams with a zig zag stitch on my machine. Next, I sewed the tunnels for the drawstring on opposite sides. Then I folded the fabric in half and closed the sides. It was finished very quickly.

The DIY Montessory Animal Match Game is complete!

I presented SJ with my creation this afternoon and she approved! We played with it for quite a while. She liked taking everything out the bag and putting it back in. I showed her how to match the toys with the cards and we named all the animals. I’d say it was a very rewarding and successful craft project!

This is Day 78 of my 100 Day Project. You can learn more about my 100 day project by reading this post. If you want to do your own 100 day Project, I would recommend checking out the 100 Day Project website.