Montessori Inspired Farm Animal Cards

Nomenclature cards, or 3 part cards, are prevalent in the Montessori method of learning.  Essentially, each card contains a picture, and a label of the picture or concept to be learned.  One card normally keeps it’s label attached, with a matching card having a detached label.  Learners can then practice matching pictures together, as well as labels to pictures, with self-correction in place since they can check their work against the attached label. There’s numerous uses, but the main purpose is to teach vocabulary (or names of concepts).  There’s cards for different types of animals, parts of a flower, planets in the solar system, life cycle of a frog, etc. etc. etc.

nomenclature cards presented by The Little List

The interwebs abound with printable options (The Little List has a great repository), and there’s some very beautiful professional options (albeit a bit pricey and usually on backorder!).  I fell in love with these cards months ago, and have been looking for a similar option ever since.  I really love how the pictures stand out on a white background–that way learners aren’t distracted by things in the background of the picture and they know exactly what they should focus on.  I finally realized I was going to have to make my own, that way I could make them exactly how I wanted, and I could add to the card collection whenever I wanted (and still have them match!).

That’s easier said than done, considering the options of free pictures.  I finally sat down one Saturday and devoted the entire day to photoshopping some free clip art to remove the backgrounds in order to get these the way I wanted them (please ignore that the lamb has no feet…).  Upon printing them, I thought they did need a little pizazz though, so I matted them on scrapbook paper before using laminating sheets (I like these).

Then it was time to play.  First, we went through each picture, flashcard style, to learn the name and talk about the picture.  Then I laid out 3 cards and asked Matthew if he could find the animal from his basket that matched the one on the card (we have all Schleich farm animals, though Toobs are a great choice, too). Uh, yeah, of course, Mom.

So I laid all the adult animal cards out, and he went to work making matches. He thought this was great fun. Like the highlight of his day great fun. Some were slightly difficult, mostly because the pictures weren’t exactly like his animals–like a German Shepard dog card and a Golden Retriever figurine.

I chose to make a set of mommy & baby cards, so then we talked about the names of baby animals.  I asked him to match the mom to the baby.  This took some more skill, but he really enjoyed the challenge.  Most of the baby animal figurines are new additions to his collection, so he was also very excited to explore those.

After playing a few times, I put them on the shelf in the living room, so he could play again whenever he wanted, and he has! We’ve recently begun playing simple Memory using only 2-3 animals (mom and baby combo).  As he gets older and recognizes words, I can trim the bottom off to have him match the name to the picture or the animal.

 

Been looking for your own set of farm animal cards? Click here to download this set of 8 animal moms and 8 animal babies.  The quality isn’t the best, but you know, cows don’t need front hooves anyway. 🙂

Note: Feel free to link to this page, but please no sharing the download on your own site. Enjoy!

Pssst…I’m linking up for Montessori Monday @ Living Montessori Now. Click on over for other great Montessori-Inspired ideas.