Free Bat Printables and Montessori-Inspired Bat Activities

Bats are fascinating mammals to study. They’re especially fun to study before Halloween. Of course, some children are afraid of bats.

So this is mainly a “cute” bat unit except for a slightly scary looking vampire bat! As usual on the 15th, you’ll find a new printable pack for our newsletter subscribers’ resource library (this time a Montessori-inspired bat pack)!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Montessori Shelves with Bat-Themed Activities

You’ll find Montessori-inspired bat numbers, letters, and and more (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber).

Note: The Montessori-inspired bat pack isn’t designed as a complete bat unit but as supplemental materials. I design the packs using realistic images that I’ve often looked for when preparing a unit study (such as font cards and phonogram cards featuring the letter and phonogram related to the theme and math cards with realistic images that fit the theme and can be adapted for math activities at a variety of levels.)

You could mix your bat-themed activities among your shelves according to curriculum area. Or you could have a special bat-themed area something like the one pictured. My shelves at the beginning of our unit have a mixture of skill levels. Many of the activities can be adapted for a variety of levels. Many of these are designed for early elementary as well as preschoolers. If you’re a homeschooler, just choose the activities that work for your child’s interests and ability levels. If you don’t have room for all the activities you’d like to do, simply rotate them.

Montessori Book Basket and Shelves with Bat-Themed Activities

Even though I have books on shelves, I keep many books for our current theme in a book basket by the themed shelf. You’ll find many of the books I’ve used here. For toddlers and preschoolers, at least ¾ of the books I use are Montessori friendly (focusing on reality without smiling or talking animals or smiling or talking vehicles).

Notice the framed copy of the colored wood engraving, The Long-Eared Bat, by Josiah Wood Whimper. It’s a free download from Wikimedia Commons.

For our monthly featured art print, I purchased a Li’l DAVINCI art frame that opens in the front for easily changing a free art masterpiece printable or vintage illustration to fit with the month’s theme. The frame can be switched from horizontal to vertical without changing the hanger, which is perfect!

If you’re wondering about the rugs and rug box I use, both the rugs and wooden rug holder are from Montessori Services. I love the Montessori Services rugs and rug holder! I used to use an umbrella stand something like these. I loved that for 1-3 rugs, but I needed something different when I had more grandchildren and some projects that needed more than one rug.

Favorite Shelves, Trays, Baskets, and More for Montessori Homeschoolers

I often get asked about the trays, baskets, etc., that I use, so I published a post with many of the items. You can find lots of helpful resources here. They’re not all essential, so don’t feel you need to have everything. Just choose what’s best for your budget and your unique family’s needs. You’ll find more ideas in the Living Montessori Now Amazon shop

The Bat Book and The Secret Life of the Little Brown Bat with Bats and Birds Venn Diagram Activity

Free Printable: Compare and Contrast Bats vs. Birds {Venn diagram freebie} by Allison Payne at Teachers Pay Teachers

This printable is perfect with the book Stellaluna. I have that on a shelf on the opposite side of the room. While it isn’t a Montessori-style book, it’s a lovely story and gives some information about bats as well.

The Bat Book by DK is a Montessori-friendly book with lots of easy-to-understand information about bats.

The Secret Life of the Little Brown Bat follows a year in a little brown bat’s life. The story gives lots of information about a bat’s life as told about a little brown bat named Otis.

The Animal Book from DK Smithsonian with Types of Bats 3-Part Cards and Bat Geography Materials

The Animal Book from DK Smithsonian with Types of Bats 3-Part Cards and Bat Geography Material

Free Printable: Types of Bats 3-Part Cards (subscriber freebie) from Trillium Montessori

The open book is the DK Smithsonian Animal Book: A Visual Encyclopedia of Life on Earth. We use this for many units, and all my grandkids love it!

B for Bat, V for Vampire Bat, and “i_e” for Vampire Bat Sand Writing Tray

B for Bat, V for Vampire Bat, and “i_e” for Vampire Bat Sand Writing Tray with Movable Alphabet Spelling

Free Printables: bat letter “b” and vampire bat letter “v” with and “o_e” vampire bat phonogram for sand writing tray (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

You’ll see a variety of simple letter writing trays in my previous unit study posts. I often used the wooden tray from the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Shapes. You can use whatever tray or container work best for you, though.

I typically now use this lovely spelling/alphabet tray from FamilyTreeWW on Etsy. I like it for writing more than one letter or spelling words. For the bat theme, I used washable paint to dye the sand a deep midnight blue.

If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers.

Sandpaper Letter B and Find the Letter B’s Activity

Looking at the All About Bats Book After Searching for Letter B’s

Free Printable: Bat Printable Pack from Simple Living, Creative Learning (highlight the letter b page)

The sandpaper letters I use are available in print or cursive.

I used this activity to focus on the differences between b, d, and p for my 3-year-old granddaughter, Sophia. I made sure I used glass gems that were see-through because they give an interesting, magnifying lens perspective when placed on the letters. The printable is actually designed to use with a highlighter. It worked very well to use glass gems instead.

I placed the exact number of gems on the tray that were needed to cover only the b’s. Some letters are capital letters on the page, so I introduced those to Sophia (whereas I normally only focus on lowercase when teaching phonetic sounds). She covered all the b’s except for mixing up one “b and “d.” She’ll easily be able to match them all correctly another time.

After working with the letter matching, Sophia was fascinated with the All About Bats book. It has gorgeous photographs and short, easily understood sentences.

Types of Bat Book with Bat Alphabet in Print and Cursive

Types of Bats Book with Bat Alphabet Cards in Print and Cursive

Free Printable: Bat Printable Pack from Simple Living, Creative Learning (the types of bats book)

Free Printable: Bat alphabet in print and cursive (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

The bat in the alphabet cards is an Egyptian fruit bat … so cute! You can use the alphabet cards for letter matching with sandpaper letters or another type of letters, matching print and cursive cards, or spelling, using the printable letters as a movable alphabet. If you look through some of my previous themed posts, you’ll find lots of ideas for using the alphabet cards.

Bat-Themed Contraction Activity

Working with Bat-Themed Contractions

Free Printable: Bat Themed Contraction Center by Lindsay Rychert at Teachers pay Teachers

This is a simple way to reinforce the concept of contractions. My 7-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, didn’t have any problems matching the cards and thought they made contractions very clear. I like to have some fun word study books, such as If You Were a Contraction, available.

“6 Little Bats” Song and Puppet Subtraction Activity

Working with 6 Little Bats Song and Puppet Subtraction Activity

Free Printable: “6 Little Bats Puppets” from Let’s Play Music

With my 3-year-old grandson, Caleb, we’ve been working on numbers 11-100 along with hands-on addition and subtraction. We’ve done a number of fun counting games. This time, I used the bat number cards to make equations after each verse of the song. Caleb loved the activity and did it more than once.

Skip Counting Bats by 5’s

Bat Skip Counting by 5’s

Free Printable: Count by Five Fun with Bats from Making Learning Fun

This isn’t the traditional Montessori skip counting activity that uses the Montessori bead chain to find the square of the number. I just used the bead bars to reinforce the quantity of the numbers in the bat skip counting activity. The ten bars are just another way to show 50.

More Activities with Purchased Materials for Our Bat Unit

I kept out many of the activities on the shelf behind the open book along with the amazing book Animalium: Welcome to the Museum open to the bats pages. The book and materials are perfect for focusing on where various types of bats live. The open book Animal Book: A Visual Encyclopedia of Life on Earth in the earlier photohey include traditional Montessori materials of the continents globe, world continents puzzle map, and Continents Felt Map with Wooden Labels from SparkandGrove on Etsy.

As much as I love the traditional Montessori world puzzle map and the individual continent puzzle maps, they’re too large and expensive for my home environment. I was lucky to find a small version of the Montessori world puzzle map by Amazing Child Montessori on Amazon. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available. But I’ve found a number of puzzle maps that work very well for homeschools and home environments in general. Here are a few.

Teach My – Toys Teach My Continents and Animals has been very popular with my younger grandkids. I love that it focuses on animals of each continent, includes animal cards and a small book, and uses the Montessori colors for the continents … all for a very reasonable price!

A favorite world map with countries has been this large floor puzzle: Educational Insights World Foam Map Puzzle. We’ve used it with a variety of animal figures and Montessori card materials.

Free Bat Printables

Free Bat and Vampire Bat Do-a-Dot Printables (Montessori-Inspired Phonics Instant Download)

Free Bat Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)

Montessori-Inspired Bat Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my newsletter to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

Helpful Animal Classification Posts

Halloween Posts

If you’d like ideas for calendar-based themes throughout September and October, see my September Themed Activities for Kids and October Themed Activities for Kids.

I hope you’re able to have a wonderful fall (or spring in the Southern Hemisphere)!

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!

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