Montessori Knock-Off (Hammer Time!)

Song stuck in your head now? Go Hammer, Yo Hammer, MC Hammer...it's Hammer time!
Yea, so...this isn't about that song or MC Hammer (as cool as they both were).

I've received so many nice emails about this Montessori Knock-Off series (thank you!!).  I'm going to keep posting ideas until I run out of them. :)

Hammering is great for hand/eye coordination, it's under Practical Life in the Montessori learning approach. You can buy a hammer/clay set that looks like this from Montessori Supply for $60:

While that wooden hammer setup is nice, it's a bit pricey. I made my version for $4.

I used a dense Styrofoam cube from a local craft store ($3.99), my husbands golf tees (shhh...) and a play hammer (free).

Amazingly, you can use each  hole multiple times after you've sunk a tee in & there's no shredding or dust from this (plus you have 6 big sides to work with). I think by the time all 6 sides are exhausted, she'll be developmentally past it and ready to move on (aka: bored with it).

I personally like this method better because the tot has to hold the cube still while hitting the nail in - takes lots of concentration and coordination to do that!

You can also use clay to make your own. Here's one from United Montessori that I liked. It's using play dough in an air tight container (click link for instructions):

You could also easily make your own variation of this using golf tees as well (the real nails made me a bit nervous).

Go Hammer!