Teach a Foundational Math Skill With This Fun Printable

I wanted to share a fun activity that both my children have been working on this week, although my one year old is only enjoying the photos.  You can use these summer visuals to teach the concept of size discrimination, a fundamental math skill.

Size discrimination is the foundation for learning about measurement and how to measure.

To explain further, you can't understand measurement without understanding the concept of size. This is first taught using direct comparison, where identical objects are compared next to each other.

Eventually you can continue on with this work using indirect comparison, comparing two objects that are different.

This activity also enriches the vocabulary. Children will not only understand the words small, medium, and large but also smaller, smallest, as well as larger, and largest.

Go here to get a printable version of all three sets of cards: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0536/5530/6394/files/Large_Medium_Small.pdf?v=1659407643

How to Introduce This Work

For young children, those new to learning about size discrimination, use only the largest and smallest sets of cards. It's also recommended to start with only 2-3 items so that it's not too overwhelming.

Once your child has mastered all 8 items using only the largest and smallest cards, you can add in the medium sized cards, again starting with just 2-3 items.

How to Display This Work

If you have a Montessori shelf or small area where Montessori work is kept, you can put the cards in 2 or 3 separate baskets, separating the cards by size.

To check out all our Montessori printables, go here: https://themontessoriroom.com/pages/free-montessori-printables