Singular and plural box (individual presentation)
What materials are needed for this activity?
The singular and plural box lives on the shelf in the Language area of a Montessori classroom. This box contains two sets of black noun cards, one set of singular phonetic nouns and one set of matching plural noun cards. There are many various objects to correspond with the cards, and two beige heading cards - one with ‘singular’ printed on it and the other with ‘plural’ printed on it.
Singular and plural box in Montessori
How this activity is presented
The directress invites the child to work with her and bring the materials one by one to the floor mat. She asks the child to assist her in unpacking one of each of the objects, placing them vertically down the left-hand side of the mat, naming each one as he does so.
The directress removes the singular noun cards from the box and gives them to the child one at a time, to sound out, blend and read each word. The child is then asked to place each card to the right of the corresponding object. The directress asks the child to unpack the remaining objects from the box and to place them vertically down, to the right of the cards on the mat.
Children blend sounds from the cards
The directress then removes the plural noun cards from the box and gives them to the child one at a time, to sound out, blend, and read each word like before. She then asks him to match each card to its corresponding object on the mat, by placing the words to the right of the objects. The column on the left-hand side of the mat indicates the singular object.
The column on the right-hand side of the mat indicates the plural for each singular object. An example of this is: one leaf in the column on the left-hand side of the mat, and two leaves in the column on the right-hand side of the mat.
The directress encourages the child to read through the columns from left to right, and top to bottom when all the words have been matched correctly. She ends the presentation by thanking the child for working with her and helps him pack away.
Looking for more Montessori activities?
Here is a list of all the Montessori Language activities. These include Early Language, Pink Language Materials, Green Language Materials, Later Language, and Grammar. Just click on the page you want to learn about to go there.