Montessori Made Affordable Sandpaper Letters

I think it will get really hard to find items the way I have this series named. So, I think I am going to use a different naming convention for this series from here on out. I will still use “Montessori Made Affordable” in the beginning of the title, but put the item I’m discussing at the end. So, for example, today’s post is Montessori Made Affordable Sandpaper Letters.

As we discussed when I first started this series, one of the missions for Live and Learn Farm is to help homeschoolers implement Montessori economically.  This means sometimes I will suggest non-traditional works and materials.  If you are a Montessori purist, this series probably will give you lots of heartburn… so consider yourself forewarned 🙂  For the rest of us that love Montessori but don’t have the big budget, today’s item is for you!

The whole point of teaching the alphabet using sandpaper letters is to provide a tactile experience with the materials.  Tactile learning or Kinesthetic learning is a style in which learning takes place by the student carrying out a physical activity… “do-ers”.  Not all children are tactile learners, but the point is …  Maria Montessori was using various learning styles to reach her students. For my family, tactile learning has been better than any other way of teaching for helping my boys grasp abstract concepts.

These letters are not exactly the traditional sandpaper letter materials,  but they perform the exact same function and purpose of providing our children with a physical experience in learning the letters for a whole lot less!!  This set includes both sets of lowercase and uppercase sandpaper-textured letter cards.  And I doubt this set would withstand a classroom of fingers using the material… but for me (with three boys), we were able to purchase items such as this for our homeschool that would not hold up to a classroom of students, but were perfect for my three children to use.

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I am also providing free lessons on the presentation of this material and different extensions that can be used with it.

NAMC Early Childhood Manual Presentation for Sandpaper Letters

An AMI Montessori Video of the Presentation for Sandpaper Letters.

Finally, a lesson with detailed language of how to introduce Sandpaper Letters from The Learning Ark

I hope these posts are a blessing to you and your homeschool.  If they are, please share and help us get the word out about our blog, our homeschool and our Montessori Made Affordable series.

Until next time, I’ll leave you with a fantastic Maria Montessori quote….

“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.” ~ Maria Montessori

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Trish Corlew

Founder and Author at Live and Learn Farm

Trish has been married to her best friend, David, for 16 years and they have three sons (aged 13, 12 and 9). Trish is from the coast of North Carolina, but they now live in rural West Tennessee on a 40+ acre farm. She has been homeschooling since 2009 and her homeschool style leans towards a Montessori approach with a heavy emphasis on hands-on learning. They also own a small business that Trish runs from home. Trish’s family is Messianic and they love studying the Scriptures, learning Hebrew and growing in their faith and walk daily. In her spare time, Trish loves to write, work in their garden and can regularly be found trying to learn something new, modeling that learning is indeed a life-long endeavor!

Latest posts by Trish Corlew (see all)

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