Season & Clothing Cards

       The second weather activity I made this fall is a set of season and clothing matching cards.  I've loved this idea ever since my first time in a Montessori classroom and it's an easy one to do at home with your own kids.  (Hypothetically... the cards are easy, but I suppose it would depend more on your child's toddler-terror level that day!) 

       While I was looking for photos to use on my cards, I came across these free printables from Montessori for Everyone.  You can't beat free printables!  Unless someone just gave you free cards... but in any case, if you have a small laminating machine at home (which I highly recommend if you like DIY activities), making various learning cards has never been easier. 

       The clothing cards in the photos below are from Montessori for Everyone.  The season heading cards are just three pictures I glued onto cardstock before laminating.  The center picture is the one included with the free printables, but I wanted to show more of each season and searched for two extra pictures to supplement.  For each season I found a tree to add, as well as a cartoon drawing.  I like the way they turned out!    

 

       My daughter enjoys these cards and I think it's good that the pictures are real photos, not cartoons.  Even though she doesn't sort these independently yet, it's a great opportunity to look through the different pictures and talk about the seasons and weather.  ***Each season/clothing set is labeled with numbers on the back, so that as Claire gets older she will be able to self-check.  (Ex: Winter = 1, Spring = 2, Summer = 3, Fall = 4) 

 

       I store these cards in two clear zipper pouches: winter and spring together, fall and summer together.  One reason I divided them was because my daughter is only 2 and we never spend more than several minutes at a time on this before she loses interest.  The other reason is because clothing in the fall/winter can be similar and clothing in the summer/spring can be similar.  I wanted to divide up the cooler seasons and the warmer seasons to help eliminate any initial confusion for Claire... now if she sees a sweater, she won't have to decide if it's in fall or winter but rather winter or spring.    

 





        We've enjoyed these cards so far, though I plan on adding different clothing photos to personalize it a little more for Claire.  For example, she has never worn a life jacket (out of lack of necessity, not because we're awful, reckless parents!), but I want to add a picture of a sundress or tank top to the summer set.  Unfortunately, I'm currently out of computer ink and have lazily not bought a new one yet... I'm sure I'll get to it one of these days!