FOR TRAINING THE COLOR SENSE.
Color Boxes: To train the child to make fine color discriminations a set of two duplicate color boxes is used. Each box contains eight colors, in a series of eight shades. In their use colors are first presented in shades strongly contrasting. A variety of games are played with these colors, one of the most interesting and useful of which resembles “Authors,” each player calling for the necessary shades from others to complete his set.
FOR TRAINING THE SENSE OF TOUCH.
Sand Paper Boards: For the first steps in training the sense of touch two small boards are provided. One has half its surface covered with sand paper, the other half smooth. The other board is covered with alternate strips of sand paper of varying degrees of roughness.
“The Fabric Box:” A collection of squares of velvet, wool, silk, fine and coarse cotton and fine and coarse linen arranged in a cabinet with drawers. Used to train further the tactile sense and add knowledge regarding quality.
TEACHING GEOMETRIC FORMS.
Plane Geometric Insets in Wood: A six drawer cabinet containing: (1) Four plain wooden squares, rhomboid and trapezoid; (2) six polygons; (3) six circles diminishing in size; (4) six quadrilaterals (one square and five rectangles); (5) triangles of varying shapes; (6) oval, elipse, flower forms, etc.
In use, these forms are mixed and the child learns (both by sight and touch) to put them in corresponding depressions in wooden trays. (Blindfolding makes the exercise more difficult and therefore more interesting.)
Plane Geometric Forms: These geometrical insets are also reproduced in three series of cards to enable the child to pass from the concrete to the abstract sense of form. In the first series, forms are mounted in solid blue on the card; in the second, forms are reproduced in thick outline; in the third, the outline is represented by a thin blue line. In the use of this device the child mixes up a series of cards and a series of wooden frames and then hides each card form by placing over it the corresponding wooden form.
So, through these exercises, the child passes—step by step, day by day—from solid objects, to the plane figures and finally to a mere drawing representing the figure; thus developing the ability to form and carry accurate images in his mind, which is the fundamental thing in writing, drawing, designing, etc.; and, indeed, any other kind of thinking and expression about the world of concrete things.
Plane Geometric Insets in Metal: Used in the first exercises in design. The child draws around the form, as he has previously “drawn around it” in feeling it with his finger. The outline is then filled in with colored crayon. The only new step is the handling of the crayon. These metal insets are used on two little tables with sloped tops (large enough to hold three of the metal insets), which are placed on the child's own table.
TEACHING THE ALPHABET.
Alphabet Boxes: Two cases containing, in compartments like a printer's case, five complete alphabets. These letters are cut in script from stiff paper and mounted on cards. To help in memorizing and distinguishing vowels and consonants the consonants are printed in rose color, the vowels in blue.
The letters are also outlined in sand paper and mounted on cards. Being rough, these sand paper letters control the little tracing fingers and the movements so developed help a child to write a remarkably good hand in a remarkably short time.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SYSTEM
The general secretary of the Montessori Association, gives the following information for The New Student's Reference Work in answer to the inquiries indicated:
“Is there any part of the work in which the children are all engaged in doing the same thing at the same time, or where each is doing a part of one piece of work, as in the Kindergarten?”
“No, even if the children voluntarily co-operate, as often occurs, as in building or color matching, this is not as if each were required to take part in some work.”
“Can you give examples illustrating the rapidity with which children learn reading, writing and number?”
“Children in Montessori classes in Rome have learned to read and write in six weeks; others in three months. One six year old boy in an American Children's House was able to compose and write seventy-seven words one month after admission to the school. Progress in number work is equally rapid, but varies with the individual.”
“Can the Montessori teacher handle successfully more or less children than the teacher under the Kindergarten method?”
“In earlier stages fewer, as each child requires individual attention. One teacher and an assistant are sufficient for 25 children. Later on as children become self disciplined, fewer teachers are required than in the Kindergarten work.”
“To what extent can the mother in the home, under the Montessori method, co-operate with the teacher, and how much can she accomplish where there is no teacher in her community?”
“She can co-operate with the teacher by putting the underlying principles of the method into practice in all her dealings with her children. What she can accomplish where there is no teacher depends entirely on the time she can devote to her children; if her whole time, and she has fully grasped the underlying principles, there is no reason why she should not accomplish just as much as the professional teacher.”
