The Best Montessori Geography Maps, Books, Activities for Kids
Geography materials are some of our favorite Montessori resources! Through organization, Montessori geography materials give children a solid foundation of knowledge about the world around us! The sequential introduction to basic geography begins between ages 3-6 years with land and water forms and color-coded continents. I’m excited to share our favorite printable and hands-on Montessori geography materials, including maps and globes for children!
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Montessori geography printables for children
Download Montessori land and water world maps
Our bilingual Montessori Land & Water World Map are available in English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese (Taiwanese, Cantonese), and Korean.
Tactile learning with Montessori maps
In a traditional Montessori classroom, teachers first introduce a globe with only brown land masses (continents) and blue water (oceans). Each continent is made of sandpaper so kids can feel the texture, contrasting with the smooth blue “water.”
No worries if you don’t have the sandpaper land and water globe! You can use the sensory ideas with ingredients from your kitchen!
For tactile learning, you can use any of the following brown materials to represent land:
- Dry oats
- Beans (eg, lentils)
- Seeds
- Brown play dough
- Sand
No need to buy or waste anything; use what you have at home!
To make these reusable, keep them loose and not glue them to the map printable. We grinded our oats into fine powder for the children’s bath. We don’t want to waste food!
Montessori geography 3-part cards: Continents
Learn how to get the most out of the Montessori Continents 3-part cards here!
Download Montessori Animals of the World 3-part cards
Because my son is obsessed with animals, he loves our Montessori Animals and Continents 3-Part Cards!
World map books
Here’s my review of great world map atlas books in Chinese and English! These map books are great for preschool and elementary school!
World globes
We are obsessed with globes around here! Here’s our review of the best world globes for kids of all ages.
Montessori geography felt world map
Okay, so this one is totally not necessary, but our Montessori Felt World Map is so much fun!
Read my detailed review about our Montessori felt world map here and how my children use this map for learning and playing!
Or click here to buy if you know this is the right map for you.
Globe and map puzzles for children
Globe puzzles
My daughter had such a blast putting together this 540-piece 3D puzzle globe. The puzzle is much easier than it looks because the pieces are labeled with numbers. Ravensburger also has a version with fewer pieces.
Where to buy:
Explore this: Favorite jigsaw puzzles for kids of all ages
Traditional Montessori geography puzzles for children
Below are links to Montessori puzzle maps that many Montessori homeschoolers recommend if they fit your budget and space:
In my humble opinion, while these Montessori geography puzzles are lovely and fun, the cost is astronomical. It is not practical or necessary for most families.
What are your favorite Montessori geography resources for children?
Please let me know in the comments or message me! We would love to check it out, and I’ll update this post as we gather more resources over time.
寻宝记is a great comic to learn about the world and about China. I recommend it
Thanks for sharing the resources and free printable. The felt map looks like such a great way to start on teaching this topic. It’s a huge invitation to play.
Wow interesting page with resources for good learning opportunities for young children! Hope to see more
Looks like the perfect way to introduce the world (in multiple languages) to my LO, especially since all our family lives across the ocean.
Thank you for sharing all these resources. They seem wonderful for teaching kids about the world and the many cultures cross the world. (:
Since I love traveling and learning about all the different cultures, I feel like it’s important to teach my children about our wonderful world and all the different people and nations in it. Of course, travelling would be one way of teaching them, but I guess the map (which is such a massive size!!) will do it for now.
Hi Betty,
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this blogpost. It’s a wonderful summary of resources covering the topic on Geography and our world.
Your explanation on the Montessori way of teaching land and water forms first, brings an insight to me on how to teach my child.
We can combine the activity with the animals and landmarks of the world.
Wishing you and your family well.
Best Regards,
Helen
Such wonderful idea to inspire and motivate kids to learn geography!!
Wow! I’m really excited about the resources you shared. We don’t do much (if any) Geography at home so this will be a great start for us. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing the ideas! Love them! Hopr to win the big felt map for my two kiddos and their cousins to play and learn together:)
Thanks for sharing the resources. With my family lives across the world in different continent, I like my LO be aware where our relatives are and how each location has their distinguishing qualities.
Hi Betty, thank you for sharing this wonderful resource. I love that it comes with different traditional Chinese and English. To teach my child, we will go through 3-part flashcards and songs related seven continents and 5 oceans.
I feel Montessori Geography will be able to let my girl have a better imagination of the world.
And, I think by introducing Montessori Geography earlier, this would be able to give my girls the knowledge about different places on earth and how they relate with each other.
Would love this for my little one as I find it will be a very helpful resource for teaching my little one.
Hi Betty,
Really impressed that a lot of mothers are talented and passionate about education. For me, i feel Montessori Geography let the child feel better and have a better imagination of the world. I think it is interesting to have a role play, passport, airplane, to the country, introduce about the country etc etc.
Amazing! A very interesting and attractive way to learn about world map
What a wonderful collection! So happy to see all the hands-on resources you have for children!
Thank you so much, Amanda! It’s my pleasure to share them! We are grateful for your resources as well!