This was an unusual week, and I had a unique opportunity. Spring break week. "Day care week - no curriculum, the children, may do whatever they want and play outside as long as they wish." OK. Within the normal ground rules of the classroom, I can live with that. Except it wasn't my classroom... It was a mix of the very youngest students. One day - the grandson of the school director and his mother appeared. They were killing time, and we were the place that he could play. (I must work on my own frustration on the lack of parent's appreciation and understanding and accept them for where they are!)
Mindful that this child was not actually enrolled-
I encouraged him to carry each pink cube one at a time to "keep them safe." (and of course as a way to feel the weight of each cube and hold the space in his hands!) I remembered in the Montessori handbook how she talks of the joy of a child in building the pink cubes in order to knock them down again- just so that he can rebuild them.
I LET him KNOCK down the pink tower!
Repetition. He worked on the pink tower for about 25 minutes! CONCENTRATION. He's not even 3, but I don't know his age. I wonder what age Maria Montessori designed the pink tower for. Was she worried about the cost at that point? Or looking at what the young children wanted to do.
Respect for the materials is critical. He was little. The blocks fell. Most were on the rug, a few off the rug. They didn't fly across the room, or hit anyone. All along his mother sat next to him, and tried to get him to find the "biggest" cube. He was, of course, building it completely out of size order. I have no idea if he has ever been given a lesson/example on the perfection of this material. He wouldn't care right now.
Should he work with anyone right now? NOPE, I don't think so. It was perfect for just his hands.
An older child needs to work on perfection and order and gradation.
I wonder...
How many schools ever allow children to knock down blocks - respectfully?
The pink cube is a unit of metric measurement that is systemic through many Montessori materials. The metric system is not used in the United States. Should some of these materials be revisited in their design? Isn't it more important to concretely understand what a 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, inch etc. are than 10CM? (That has to be one of the most useless measurements I can concretely measure!)
4 comments:
I was surprised to read that Montessori allowed children to knock down the pink tower, but she did. I believe it was designed for ages 2 and a half onwards.
It never surprised me when I actually found it. The Montessori handbook was not the first book that I read, but it was one that I enjoyed immensely when I did read it after having taught for several years.
Have you watched a child of any age? They want to build and knock down so they can build again. Dr. Montessori's fundamental principle was to follow the child. This meant not to construct an enviroment and then design rules to protect the expensively purchased materials that we put there, but to construct an environment that was truly designed for the child.
Through their own self interest their then learn to control their own actions and want to develop mastery.
That was my understanding from my training. That was how a true respect of the materials developed - so it wasn't a surprise.
Like many other things, a balancing act.
Thanks for sharing. My little ones liked to knock down the tower at times too.
Congrats on being listed on the 50 blogs list. I tried to grab your button, but did not see one to grab for my blog. Thank you for stopping by my blog, too.
LOL.. I guess I need to make a button!
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