Mystery Bag (presentation one)

What is a Montessori Mystery Bag?

In the Sensorial area of a Montessori classroom, you will come across a bag (usually red in colour) with drawstrings. The bag contains different objects, that may be familiar to the child, for example a pair of scissors, a hair clip, a pen, etc.

How the first presentation is done with the Mystery Bag

The directress introduces the Mystery Bag to the child. She explains to him that they will use their sense of touch to feel for different objects inside the bag.

The directress begins by tipping out all of the objects from the bag onto the table, letting the child identify what is in the bag. She then places each object back into the bag one at a time. She shows the child how to place the string around her neck with the bag resting on her lap like before with the Stereognostic Bag activity.

She places her two hands in the bag, feeling for an object. She tries to guess the name of the object before she takes it out of the bag. The directress invites the child to have a turn to guess what objects are inside the bag without looking, just using his sense of touch, as well as an educated guess.

This is a great activity for the directress to get a better understanding of whether the child knows the names for each object.

The second presentation with the Mystery Bag is presented in the same manner, the only difference is the directress will not show the child the objects first. The child will be encouraged to guess what each object is without seeing it first.

Looking for more Montessori activities?

Here is the full list of the Montessori tasks, including Visual and Muscle Discrimination Sense activities, Tactile Sense activities, Chromatic Sense activities, Auditory Sense activities, Thermic Sense activities, Gustatory Sense activities, Baric Sense activities, Olfactory Sense activities, Stereognostic Sense activities, Geometry activities, and Algebra activities. Just click on the activity you want to learn about to go there.