The hand and it's tools

"The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence" M. Montessori

The importance of the hand is at the heart of Montessori education.  The use of hands helps the child construct itself thought Maria Montessori.  "The hand is the tool of the mind".  Years later, science tends to prove that indeed manipulation is paramount in learning, and that retention will be greatly enhanced if the child learned through manipulation rather then mere rote learning.

If the hands bear such importance, then the tools we use should allow the hand to work at optimum level: to help the learning process, but also to foster the love of learning.

What is more frustrating, even for us adults, to use a tool that is either defective or of poor quality?  This experience can be even more frustrating for the little child who does not have the amount of coordination we do for common tasks.

I often see in children's store or catalogues tools aimed for children that are either poorly constructed or made with lesser quality products.  And unfortunately, they seem to be the norm.
They are also usually made to entice the children's eyes, with bright colors of other features like mass media products which, in the end, makes them overwhelming.  For the parents, these items are cheap, and thus interesting budget wise.
But if the hand truly has the importance we attribute it, I think it is wise to use high quality, functional, attractive and beautiful material to keep it working.

Children are able to use tools way before we expect them to and better then we them credit for.  What they need is guidance and an adequate and safe environment where they can experiment with such tools.

E was given true and good quality tools at a very young age.  And I can see the results of this already.   His desire and will to work with his hands and use tools is very strong.

I try to fill his need of using his hands for very meticulous tasks by having a rotation of practical life activities requiring fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and also deep concentration...  in a variety of situations, whether they are real of artificial.

Good quality tools can be found now easily thanks to a some Montessorians who wished to offers good tools that would be correctly sized for children.

I usually find what I need and get inspired by:

For Small Hands and Montessori Services : both have beautiful and inspiring material for the small and not so small child

Michael Olaf is another site that is just as wonderful.

But do not underestimate locally found products.  There are many treasures that can be found in regular stores.  Sometimes, it is just a matter of thinking outside the box.

Everyday Montessori

I have no idea what happened, but I lost my blog post yesterday after it got posted... Blogger cam really be a pain sometimes...I miss wordpress...

This is something I frequently find in the house.  A spontaneous sorting activity initiated by E.  I just have to leave the material in an easy to reach spot in an attractive way.  These colored bowls are his favorite for any color sorting activities.

This time, he used the number puzzle that was close by as objects to sort.  Sometimes, he goes around the house and uses other items, and sometimes he asks for material, or he uses the ones I provide with the bowls.  I rotate this material often.

Color sorting is a good and easy to set up Montessori activity for all ages.  You can easily step up the work by letting the child search in the house for colored object without having a reference in his hands, or over ask for shades a few colors.  This also has the benefit of teaching new vocabulary and train the eye to become more accurate in distinguishing hues.

Pinterest is  full of ideas for color sorting activities, if you need more inspiration.

Learning Roman numerals

On the morning of december 26th, we had a very important breakfast at my husband's grandmother's house.  We don't get to see her very often because she lives far away, and so she was anxious to have some time with us all.
Right after breakfast was over, X came over in the dining room and actually asked me to teach him the Roman numerals...!  This kids who doesn't want to have anything to do with schooling for months now came to ask me to teach him Roman numerals.  Both DH and I were floored.  How could I refuse?  Thankfully, Grandma tagged along with us talking about Roman numerals.  I am sure she was expecting  the morning conversation to be miles away from that.

I am not sure what triggered this question, although I had a doubt.  He watched Astérix the night before on tv with his cousins.  I know that in this particular movie, they are searching for a house, and Obélix asks what xvi (said like a word in the movie) means.

The topic was raised again after we came back home, and I saw a real interest in the topic.
I put together, on a whim, a hundred Roman numeral board.  Thankfully, I was able to use a printable here
(Participassion is an awesome french website with tons of fantastic resources!  Love it!)

Printed it, glued it on whatever card stock we had around, and X immediately started to work.

He completed the chart once, it was a very long process, and nothing could distracted from it.   He asked me to do a recap chart so that he could correct himself.   And then, once completed, he was done.  He hasn't touched it since, and surprisingly he now knows everything about roman numerals...and I have come to understand a few more things about him in the process.

Letter explosion!

I don't know what 2013 has in store for us, but I do know that it has started in force!
New understanding of X's learning style (which by itself is so big!  More on that later), many changes in our home environment, jobs... I sure hope that 13 will keep on being good to us.

I have noticed many changes in E too lately.  He is generating a lot more questions then he used to, he is starting to be interested in things he wasn't before, one of them being letters.

A few weeks ago, he started to sing the ABC song.  Honestly, I am not yet sure where he got it from, but I didn't think much of it until he associated a letter he saw to it's name: A.  This made me realize he knew more then I thought.

And with M that suddenly is reading, and spontaneously writing, and X that is now reading regularly cartoon type books (Asterix and Tintin of course), I can say that we are in a time of letter explosion right now.  I do not know how long we'll ride this wave, but I will surely enjoy it will it passes.

So E is currently crusing along the line of learning the sounds of the alphabet.  I never thought I would be teaching this at 2 1/2, but I have learned the importance of following the child.

I took advantage of the Christmas season to buy this beautiful letter puzzle (picture above)  that I have had my eyes on for a while.  I really wanted it for M, but I didn't get it on time for her.  It is right on time for E.

It is a puzzle by TAG toys.  I have said it before, and I will say it again, I love this company.  Their products are really high quality, and they, undoubtedly, will last forever.  E's peg's tumbler is still a hit, 6 months later.  And while the price of the puzzle did seem high at first, I totally understood why then it came home.

Let me show you the actual size of this:

We are not talking about the standard size wooden puzzle.  This is big and heavy and sturdy too!  And I think this is what makes it so satisfying for E to work with it.  He LOVES to travel this around, he does it many times a day.
The letters are easily the same size as the letters of the large movable alphabet.  They are thicker (and not as smelly...).
I hesitated between this and the typical Melissa and Doug; I have no regrets whatsoever about my choice.  I wish I had bought it for the other 2.


So what do E do with this?

Right now, he picks a letter, and I say its sound.  He usually repeats it after me.  This is basically the 1st part of the 3 parts lesson.  The difference is that I let him choose which letter.  I am not pushing anything, he has his own agenda.

In Montessori education, we rather teach the sound before the name, but obviously, he got it the other way round.  Does this worry me in any way? No.  He'll get it soon enough.  Do I think he will be confused? No, he is currently learning his letters both in french and english at the same time, and he manages not to be confused by that... I don't know how he manage.

I am a little surprised by the interest E has in letters right now.  I hadn't planned anything else then playing around with this puzzle, but it seems clearer to me that I might have to go to another step with him.  This next step will probably be the letter pouches that I made before for M.  We'll see how this go.

Overall, I am completely happy with this puzzle.  I have seen M using it to write words (using it like a movable alphabet).  Of course, since there is only one letter of each, it makes it very limitating for that, but I see the delight of being able to handle such big and thick letters in her hand (and in E's hands too!)