Preschoolers often enjoy building activities that help with eye-hand coordination along with the concepts right, left, and “right is tight, left is loose.” An activity can be as simple as having a few different sizes of nuts and bolts in a basket for children to put together.
(Note: This post was updated on 3/31/2013 to add information from the newly published 3rd edition of Montessori at Home. This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.)
Building a Flashlight (Photo by John Bowman from Montessori at Home)
In John Bowman’s eBook Montessori at Home: The Complete Guide to Doing Montessori Early Learning Activities at Home, John has activities with nuts and bolts and a screwdriver board along with two practical life activities that are less commonly seen and are great ways to reinforce similar skills.
Building a Flashlight
Excerpt from Montessori at Home:
Flashlight Assembled (Photo by John Bowman from Montessori at Home)
Turn something we do without thinking into a self-contained activity that provides muscle control and coordination practice, sequencing, and a safe experience with electricity. Neat!
(Excerpt and photos used with permission from John Bowman. The “right is tight” and “left is loose” cards are printables in the new edition of Montessori at Home.)
Pipe Building
Excerpt from Montessori at Home:
Pipe Building (Photo by John Bowman from Montessori at Home)
Age Range 3-6
Goals of this Activity
- Exercise the small muscles of the hand and fingers in a new way
- Teach the concepts of right and left, and the “right is tight, left is loose‟ rule
- Allow the child to create free form pipe sculptures
- Reinforce the Activity Cycle
Materials Required
- A bowl or box
- 1” diameter male and female pipe fittings from the home improvement store. Get different lengths of pipe, curved and right angle elbows, caps, and T shaped pieces. Get at least 2-3 of each kind.
Presentation and Use
1. Have your child lay out a table mat to make a work space and bring the box with the pipe pieces to the mat.
2. Help your child as needed to get the hang of attaching the pieces together. Emphasize the “right is tight, left is loose‟ rule.
3. Let your child explore on her own.
4. When your child is done, she can take apart the pipe, put the bowl away, and put the mat away, completing the Activity Cycle.
Extending the Activity
- Run water through the pipe.
- Drop a small rock or a nut from the Nuts and Bolts activity into the finished pipe and work it down by turning and shifting the pipe. Stop at times before it comes out and see if your child can figure out where the object is in the pipe.
Pipe Building (Photo from Buttercup’s Babies)
Visit Buttercup’s Babies for a parent’s account of doing the pipe building activity with her two boys, titled
“Plumbing: who knew it was fun and educational?”
This story nicely illustrates how activities can be extended to involve numerous interesting elements. This parent did a great job of helping her kids get the most from an activity they found highly interesting. Good job!
(Excerpt and photos used with permission from John Bowman and Gwen at Buttercup’s Babies.)
John Bowman’s Montessori at Home eBook (available exclusively as part of the Montessori at Home eBook and Materials Bundle in the Living Montessori Now shop) is filled with amazing ideas for families.
The Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle Available Exclusively on Living Montessori Now!
You can get a free download of 51 sample pages from Montessori at Home eBook by clicking here! (This includes information on John’s simplified Montessori reading sequence.)
Here’s the direct link to the purchase page for the Montessori at Home! Materials Bundle,which includes the Montessori at Home eBook AND over $60 worth of Montessori Print Shop materials to go with the book (now only $14.95)!
Here’s the list of 21 printable Montessori materials included in the bundle:
- Phases of the Moon (3-part cards & chart)
- Animals of the Continents
- Continents 3-Part Cards
- Land & Water Form Photo Book
- World – Control Maps, Masters and Labels
- Moveable Alphabet – Print – (includes full instructions)
- Sentence Cards – Step 1 – Set 1
- Word and Picture Cards – Step 1 – Read Pictures
- 1-100 Math Series
- Geometric Matching Cards
- Geometric Solids 3-Part Cards – Blue
- Skeleton Nomenclature Cards
- Tree Nomenclature Cards
- Phonics Sound and Picture Sorting
- Association of Objects
- What Does Not Belong
- The Five Senses
- Plant or Animal?
- Animals and Their Names
- Color Grading Cards
- Metal Insets – Shape Outlines
Excerpts and Activities from the Montessori at Home eBook
you can read all the excerpts from the book that I’ve shared here at Living Montessori Now:
Activities with Marbles and Golf Tees from Montessori at Home!
Building a Flashlight and Pipe Building from Montessori at Home!
1000-10,000 Activity from Montessori at Home!
Make Fossils from Montessori at Home! 
Cutting with a Knife from Montessori at Home!
Free Play Tubs (Sensory Bins) from Montessori at Home!
Create an Attractive Home Environment from Montessori at Home!
Concentration and Normalization from Montessori at Home
How to Prepare a Montessori Jar for Meaningful Preschool Activities at Home (an activity prepared using one of the book’s printables)
Allow Time for Repetition and Concentration from Montessori at Home!
Activities Using Some of the Montessori Print Shop Materials from the Montessori at Home eBook and Materials Bundle
Here are activities I published using just 4 of the 21 Montessori Print Shop materials from the Montessori at Home eBook and Materials Bundle:
Montessori-Inspired Phases of the Moon Playdough Tray
Easy-to-Prepare Montessori Animals of the Continents Activity
Extending Montessori Animals of the Continents Work
Hands-on Fun with Montessori-Inspired Human Skeleton Activities
Seashell Color Matching {Easy-to-Prepare Variation of Montessori Color Box 3}
Again, John Bowman’s Montessori at Home eBook is available exclusively as part of the Montessori at Home eBook and Materials Bundle in the Living Montessori Now shop!
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.
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My son would love this! When I was studying engineering we were taught to say “lefty loosey righty tighty” as a way of remembering the directions. A bit random but it stayed in.
Thanks, Rachael! That’s how I always remember the directions, too – even though I know almost nothing about engineering! 🙂
I have been meaning to put the Pipe Building work together. Thank you for the reminder.
Thanks for your comment! That’s an awesome activity, isn’t it?! 🙂
Thanks for the great post, Deb!
Thanks, John … and thank you for the awesome activities in your book! 🙂
Fun, as always! I’ll remember this one when Super Tot is a little older!
Thanks for your comment! Super Tot would probably love both activities when he’s a bit older! 🙂
I love that pipe building work. I’ve been meaning to do that with my girls and just haven’t gotten to the hardware store yet.
Thanks, Ally! I think all moms need someone like my now-adult son around. Home Depot was one of his very favorite places growing up, so I could always count on him to do any Home Depot errands! 🙂
Very cool! My children love the flashlight work. Now the older one’s (8 and 9)are putting together things like vacuums!
Thanks for your comment, Susana! I LOVE that your older children are putting together things like vacuums! I have a small steam cleaner that needs assembly. I’m an empty nester now and really miss having kids like yours around! 🙂
Hi! Interesting post 🙂
I’m not sure if I can participate in yours and J. Bowmans e-book – I’m a teacher, not a mom blogger?
Thanks so much for your comment, Nataša! John and I would LOVE to have you contribute to the e-book! Maybe we’ll have a like-a-mom-with-many-children bloggers category for Montessori teachers (or something similar). Please send one or two activities. I always love your posts, and that would be great! I’ll add this to the request in the post, too. 🙂
This reminds me of an article I read a life time ago that suggested you buy old appliances for older kids to take a part and explore. I have a nephew who would love to take a part an old type writer, etc. As always, thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much, Zina! I love to see kids doing activities like that … I certainly could have used that sort of experience. 🙂
I’ve been meaning to try both these works since my children already attempt to assemble and disassemble our flashlights and since they love building things. We are working on L and R right now, so this would be great reinforcement!
Thanks for your comment, Martianne! Your children sound like great examples of Montessori in action. I bet they would love these activities! 🙂
Pipe building is such a wonderful activity! I remember students just loving it when I was teaching, and with my daughter’s recent interest in wrenches and screwdrivers she probably isn’t far from being ready for it herself. Thanks for the great idea!
Congratulations on your new project as well. I’m looking forward to seeing the ebook!
Thanks for your comment, Melissa! It’s great that your classroom had pipe building! I’m looking forward to both John’s new edition coming out soon and the free e-book. I hope you’re planning to contribute to the free e-book! 🙂
I love the idea of putting together a flashlight and the plumbing parts! My son needs some extra exercises to help build the strength in his hands and I think this will help – and help with his right/left orientation – Thanks!
Visiting from the Hip Homeschool Hop.
Thanks, Gidget! Those should be great activities for your son! 🙂
Hope you don`t mind me linking up {a little late sorry!}- some of our bird and b activities are Montessori inspired. Also some shots of a baby exploring a sensory basket.
Thanks- off to check out some other links!
Thanks for linking up, Lulu! You can link up throughout the week – no problem! I’m so glad to have you join us! 🙂
These activities are so great….Pinky will love them but maybe she would re-arrange the flashlight (I think she’s still young but in a few months will be great!) Thanks…I am linking up a bit late but loving all the ideas that are linked)
Thanks so much for your comment! It’s never a problem to link up anytime during the week. I’m so glad you’ve linked up! 🙂
We have experimented with flashlights. We still need to work on pipes.
Thanks for your comment … it’s great that you’ve experimented with flashlights! Pipes are lots of fun, too! 🙂
PVC pipe is inexpensive. Lengths can be cut very safely using a pipe cutter. Fittings can be used to build a simple structure. We homeschooled; our youngest went through a stage from about age 3 to 6 where he WAS a plumber and wanted to learn a lot about plumbing so we bought him PVC pipe for his birthday. It turned out to be a great gift. We also bought him his own book of DIY book. The section on plumbing (and later, how to make cement) became his request for bedtime reading material for a time. Yeah, my kids are all “weird”. We also used cast-off appliances to let them reverse engineer. One has a career as an electrical engineer, so allowing them lots of time to mess around with junk really paid off.
Pipe building is such a wonderful activity I love the idea of putting together a flashlight and the plumbing parts. Thanks for sharing this.
You know if you are not on Instagram, you should be. I know you can’t put text up, but just throw in a few pics and build an audience there. I think you’d find a ton of people who would be super interested in your blog here.
This true, plumbing is not just a work, it can be entertain one if you are novice and looking for fun.