Montessori Painted Materials - NOT All-Natural

More on why we don't prefer natural materials all of the time.

 

Botany Cabinet: Focus on the Essentials

An excerpt from the elementary biology album that reminds us why we use generic shapes in the botany cabinet, as opposed to leaf names specific to a particular region:

Once the child gathers a large body of knowledge from sensorial exploration, she can then begin to order and classify it.

An example of how this happens is by giving the child the name of the new shape rather than just giving the name of the plant from which the leaf comes. For example, the child can see that this plant has obovate leaves and so does this plant. That plant over there has sagittate leaves. When you give the name of the leaf shape, you give the children a tool to classify leaves and plants alike. Just giving the names of the plants, does not provide a basis for ordering and classification. This base of information is also built up through the use of nomenclature material in the primary. The nomenclature material is used by children who are reading and also those children who are not yet reading. Through the use of the nomenclature material, children learn the names of plants, parts of plants, names of animals and names of parts of animals. Eventually, all of this information can be ordered and classified. Another source for building up the child’s store of information comes from the stories, the poems and the songs that the teacher introduces about plants and animals.

All of this work becomes a foundation from which the children will launch with her work in the elementary.

Geometry Cabinet Contents

Geometry Cabinet Drawers

Drawer I	Contains six circles varying in diameter from ten to five cm
Drawer II	Six variations of rectangles: 10x10 cm square, 10x9, 10x8, 10x7, 10x6, 10x5
Drawer III	Different types of triangles: equilateral, right-angled isosceles, obtuse-angled isosceles, acute-angled isosceles, right-angled scalene, obtuse angled scalene
Drawer IV	Different regular polygons: pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon
Drawer V	Four curvilinear figures: ellipse, quatrefoil, curvilinear triangle, oval
Drawer VI	Four quadrilaterals: rhombus, right trapezoid, isosceles trapezoid, parallelogram

Geometry Cabinet Definitions

Circle	a closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from a point within it called the center
Rectangle	a parallelogram having four right angles
Square	a rectangle having all four sides of equal length
Triangle	closed plane figure having three sides and three angle
Equilateral	All sides are of equal length; an equilateral triangle is also equiangular
Right-angled	Having one right angle (90°)
Obtuse-angled	Having one angle of greater than 90°
Acute-angled	Having angle of less than 90°
Scalene	Having all sides unequal
Isosceles	Having 2 sides equal
Polygon	A figure, usually closed-plane, having three or more usually straight sides
Pentagon	A polygon having 5 angles and 5 sides
Hexagon	A polygon having 6 angles and 6 sides
Heptagon	A polygon having 7 angles and 7 sides
Octagon	A polygon having 8 angles and 8 sides
Nonagon	A polygon having 9 angles and 9 sides
Decagon	A polygon having 10 angles and 10 sides
Ellipse	a plane curve such that the sums of the distances of each point in its periphery from two fixed points, the foci, are equal; (x2/a2) + (y2/b2)=1; if a=b, the ellipse is a circle
Oval	having the general form, shape or outline of an egg, wider at one end than the other
Quatrefoil	leaf composed of four leaflets; a panel-like ornament composed of four lobes radiating from a common center
Curvilinear triangle	triangle consisting of or bound by curved lines
Rhombus	an oblique-angled  equilateral parallelogram (any equilateral parallelogram except a square)
Parallelogram	quadrilateral having both pairs of opposite sides parallel to each another
Trapezoid	a quadrilateral plane figure having two parallel and two non-parallel sides
Right trapezoid	trapezoid with one right angle
Isosceles trapezoid	trapezoid with two sides of equal length

Geometry Cabinet Cards: 

For each geometric shape in the Montessori geometry cabinet, there are 3 cards on which the shape/inset fits: a solidly filled in one, one with a thick outline and one with a thin outline. 

Trinomial Cube - LONG Life

I would like to introduce you to a long-time companion of mine - the Trinomial Cube:

The "big" cube in primary!

The Binomial Cube
The small guy in primary

He has a few buddies: 

The Algebraic Cube - Elementary

Power of Two Cube - Elementary

Binomial and Trinomial are beautiful puzzles in the primary environment. But the Trinomial - he goes places! While the binomial is also useful in the elementary class, the trinomial does most of the work. 

(a + b + c)^3 

The children are learning this sequence, sensorially at age 3 1/2, and it builds and grows from there. 

The children continue to use the material sensorially in elementary, then they start doing some squaring work with the lid (the lid has (a + b + c)^2). 

And one day, they hear of the Story of the Three Kings. Oh, no,  not THOSE 3 Kings - the OTHER Three Kings. These Kings: A-Cubed, B-Cubed, and C-Cubed. They were marching along happily in procession - and... there was a REVOLT! That revolt overturned the order of the procession! It was chaos! It was order! And the children learn algebra! And cubing!

And the Trinomial Cube has a new lease on life! 

And the children work with the trinomial cube; then expand into the algebraic cube; finally they work with the power of two cube - it all began with the trinomial cube and his little brother the binomial cube.

But the children have moved on. And the trinomial cube appears done. A wash-out. Used up. It's all over for him. 

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I recently read through an older NAMTA journal, on the topic of teaching geometry in adolescence, using Euclid's Book of the Elements (all 13 volumes are currently available in a set of 3 books).  

Guess who makes an appearance! The trinomial cube is truly an ever-present material for the children in Montessori environments. And a credence to the AMI stance that we don't need "more" materials - we need to go DEEP with the materials!
ETA: The adolescent Algebra Album available through NAMTA - lists it as one of the necessary materials ;) NICE! 

Just looking at it, consider for yourself: how deep does this material go for you? What uses could you see for your children, even if you don't have all the album pages for all the levels? What could your children experience with just this one piece of Montessori equipment? 

Montessori Colors - Art

So why is the pink tower pink and the brown stair brown and the red rods red and the number rods red and blue and the metal insets pink and blue - and all those other colors? I don't know why each one was initially chosen. 

Do they matter?

YES!

Can you change them up a bit - well, yes. But why re-think the wheel? There are SO many benefits to the colors as they are. Perhaps Dr. Montessori couldn't define why she made all choices; but she was a careful observer and the colors she chose that she never changed - she didn't change because they WORKED. She only changed if something wasn't working. 

Pink is a calming color - it brings the children into the primary environment at a very young age. It is attractive. If it is not attractive to boys, then we need to look at the programming done at home. At 3, pink is NOT a girl or boy color! If it's a girl color only, then the boys will never learn to write.... 

Because the sandpaper letters (used to introduce writing not reading) are pink too! Usually it is the consonants (the majority of the letters) but I've seen it reversed. Interestingly enough, the metal insets (used for.... drum-roll.... WRITING! -- the first time child a writes with a pencil and intended to focus on writing skills and letter-writing-directionality) are pink and blue too. The writing material coordinates. Hmm. And as it moves into reading, it becomes red and blue. I'm not sure why on that one. 

Why brown for the brown stair? Because it looks so nice coordinated with the pink cubes from the pink tower when doing extension work. If you're going to leave ONE thing natural, this would be it because it still goes along with the pink tower. But really - the solid smooth color is much better for the children than the grain of wood on this one (or the pink tower or red rods). 

Red rods? It stands out clearly against just about any material in the classroom - and since we use the rods as a measuring device, this would be a good thing! 

Oh, but the paint chips! Hint: I know Dr. Montessori originally said she allowed the children to be destructive - but then she spent some time in India. Under house arrest. Just because she was Italian. She went there for 2 weeks and came home something like FOUR YEARS later. Interesting how world history (World War 2 in this case) affects how we interpret someone's books on how we educate our children today. Yep. She changed her thinking AND her teaching on *anything* destructive. Kids like to knock their cups off their high chairs as babies - it can be cute in the moment but it leads to carelessness and destruction (and messes!) later, so we nip in the bud. 

The grain of the wood can detract from the visual impression of dimension that we are trying to emphasize with the children. Here is a YouTube video of a pink tower with the natural broad stair - beautifully done, but the knots on the broad stair didn't need to be there. 

Red fraction circles: the unit is red; the fraction circles and squares are dividing up a unit. 

Red and blue number rods - red is the unit; blue is a nice alternate color from the color wheel; it also avoids most color-blind issues. 

Place value for math and the colors of the number beads are rarely questioned - these seem to make natural sense for everyone. 

 Ask me about other colors!

Sensorial Materials - Colors

Pink, brown, red, red and blue, what are all these colors????

For most materials the color does not matter persay, however there is are outcomes with certain color schemes that have allowed the child's mind to "get" the connections.

Geometry plane insets: the blue corresponds with the geometric solids in both primary and elementary (presuming you have blue solids...). Yellow opposes blue quite nicely as a background.

The map colors again don't really "matter" but why re-think the wheel? Each of the colors contrasts nicely with the ones next to it. Color-blindness combinations could be considered before re-thinking this color scheme..

Pink and brown are soft colors that coordinate well together - could you use another color for the pink tower and brown stair? Yes, but these soft colors are ideal for the age level (brand new, very young children need comfort); they coordinate well on a color circle (think art, aesthetics, beauty).

Red and blue are clearly opposing. (Red and purple - purple contains red; same with yellow/green; red/yellow or blue/yellow could work, however you're getting into brightness versus a darker shade - best to have the same shade in this work - the yellow/blue works for the geometric cabinet, darker shape, lighter background; it wouldn't work as well for the number rods, sound cylinders, and the like where we want an even surface, not negative/positive space).

Can you find the spot where a cube is missing? 

Why not make everything in the sensorial area all-natural and have the child focus just on the concept at hand? Isn't that a Montessori concept - isolation of a property?

Except those classrooms with ONLY all-natural sensorial materials have materials that collect dust. They are not as attractive (we want to attract the child) because they do not oppose each other; when placing the tower pieces next to the stair pieces, there is no opposition of color in the different dimensions, no beauty. We are missing the development of aesthetics. And we need a certain amount of contrast within particular materials (anything that is currently 2-colored or more).

The natural knobbed cylinders are nice - and besides being a preparation for writing, they do have the child focusing solely on the dimension - but the children aren't putting those pieces with each other - they might later match them with the (colored) knobless cylinders; then the colors of the knobless indicate the set to which they belong and contrast nicely with the natural knobbed cylinders (sort of like matching the natural-based bells with the black and white bells - natural is for any of them, while a color is for a specific set).

When pairing natural grain to natural grain, the focus becomes on the pattern of the grain - rather than on the dimensions themselves. The lines in the grain actually detract the eye from the dimensions we are actually wanting to focus on....

In the end, what has been historically colored has strong aesthetic, color-blindness and practical purposes for being colored in the combinations utilized.

Buy the natural ones if they are cheaper (usually they are); then paint them! This way, you'll have extra of the right color/shade on hand for repairs when they chip (because they do chip - and that's great, because it's a sign they are being *used* - and opportunity to teach about care of the environment through gentility).