Montessori (Sensorial): Brown Stairs & extension

"Aim: To help develop the child's

1) visual discrimination of differences in 2 dimensions.

2) muscular cordination.

 

Indirectly preparing the child for later work in geometry through observation of geometrically differences in size & volumes. Indirectly prearing the child for the concept of numbers, unit differences in height and width."

 

{Above extracted from " Basic Montessori learning activities for under-fives" by David Gettman}

 

Material needed: 10 brown wooden, rectangular blocks. E

 

In this activity, the child arranges the blocks from the thickest to the thinnest. All are of the same length but increasing in thickness (differing by 1 cm from the next). As the  child works on this, she is able to instantly see the differing thickness of each block.

 

 

Not coincidentally, the Pink tower blocks are of the same measurement as the square end of the brown stair blocks. As an extension to these 2 activities, you can have the child match the Pink tower to the brown stairs to their corresponding sizes.

There are 10 blocks in both the Pink tower and Brown stair set. So as the child arranges them in order, you can also count along!

I never knew of this until I surf around other Montessori blogs! That's the beauty of Montessori- so clever! Each activity is build on the one before it. One activity subtlety helps to the child to acquire a skill that is needed for the next activity. That's how each Montessori activity is linked! WOW! Genius!