Montessorian ideas 1974-1982

This posting serves two purposes:

1. It is a genuine part of the 'What I Threw out Today' process of 'digitize and dispose' in which I photograph and blog items from my attic before I dispose of them.
2. It also serves to illustrate materials I made for my students when I ran a Montessorian pre-school group 1974-1982. The school was called New Cana Pre-School, and was situated in Tallaght. The materials are either versions of materials as designed by Maria Montessori, or are based on Montessorian ideas. They may also be adaptations of commercially available materials which I had found to be only partially satisfactory.

If I have infringed anyone's copyright, I do apologize, and am happy to correct and give credit to anyone who supplies me with missing information.

The objects below are presented in no particular order.
Don't forget that you can CLICK on an IMAGE to ENLARGE it.

MATCHING BOARD
This battery operated board has a central light, and two probes, one for each hand.

On large cards, duplicate items are arranged randomly (apparently).

When the probes are connected to the matching pair, the central light goes on.

Invicta People
Designed for illustrating sets theory, they are also useful for matching colour, and for muscular development in making them stand.
QUADRILATERAL CARDS
The translucent nature of the loose quadrilaterals means the guide figure underneath can be seen (to enable self correcting).
BLACK COUNTING STAIRS
An early exercise in connecting the act of physically counting with the written figure.
GRADED COLOUR CARDS - similar to coloured spools.
(Irrelevant is the plastic bag of jig-saw pieces that got into the image by mistake!)

STORY CARD
Text is for the adult to read, image is to keep the child's interest in the narrative.
GEOMETRIC CARD
These are the outlines of the geometric solids and draw the child's attention to the different types and sizes of facets on each solid.
PINK LETTER BOARD
This board helps the child to be aware of and to differentiate between similar letters. Each letter lifts to show the appropriate capital letter underneath.
Home made SPINDLE BOX for counting spindles, again connecting counting with the written figure.
Home made SANDPAPER BOARDS, rough and smooth, and rough and very rough. 
BUCKLES
A matching exercise which also discriminates size, shape and colour.
WOODEN GEOMETRIC DOMINOS
As well as being used for dominos game, shapes can be matched, and/or combined.

CARDBOARD PYRAMID
Pyramid on a square base.
Matching pyramid on a triangular base not visible in image.
SANDAL on board
Exercise in fastening a buckle.
PLASTIC RINGS
Used for muscular coordination, colour matching, also for threading.
FUZZY FELT
This commercially designed game is useful for all kinds of story telling, for orientation of images, and for sorting and matching exercises with children with poor muscular coordination.
FABRIC SQUARES
For identifying textures, also colours. Can be used with blindfold and with 'feeley bag' for developing touch.
EXAMPLES OF PLASTIC TOYS can be used for matching colours, and shapes, as well as for muscular coordination.

RONALD RIDOUT reading books contain many exercises based on phonetic material.
PHONETIC PEOPLE used for making up easy to read stories
WORD SNAKES
Phonetic word families used for phonetic exercises.

(also included are words from Ladybird reader which some children may be familiar with - used for Look and say method.)

JIGSAW MAP British Isles
Not very satisfactory as it groups counties together
Box of PEGS for use with peg-boards. Used for counting, colour sorting, various mathematical exercises, and especially for development of pencil-gripping muscles.
TIMELINES
Sequence of plant, tree, human. Used as key with loose cards



VARIOUS MAPS introducing the idea of symbolizing space, also names of places
RED COMMAND CARDS can be used as a silence game.
TESSELATING PENTAGON FLOWER
Pentagonal frame missing. Demonstrated that six small pentagons fit in a large pentagon.
Wooden threading wheel




MORE MAPS including some with pictures, showing these have to do with people, and not just places.
SEQUENCE STORY CARDS
Develops concepts of before and after












MISCELLANEOUS LOCAL HISTORY
Examples of resources to relate history to present day.

ALPHABET FOLDERS
Separate folder for each letter, includes sandpaper letter in small case. Some words included are non-phonetic but are reasonably familiar.
Phonemes are treated in separate folders to show, for example, that the word 'wheel' begins with 'wh' rather then merely 'w'.




PLANETS
Chart showing SEQUENCE, individual cardboard models showing SCALE.
CONTINENTS
Used with World Map to simplify multiplicity of countries.
WEATHER DIAL
Can be set daily to indicate current weather.
RUBBER STAMP CARDS
For use with the song: "One of these things is not like the other".
Also sets of numbers for practising number sequencing.

WEATHER CARDS paired for matching.
Home-made BOOKLET "Friends of Other Lands' introduction to idea of different places
FLAGS of some familiar countries
SPANISH ARMADA map, cards and story
FLAG MATCHING CARDS
Names of countries on the back of each card.
GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURE CARDS
These were for used on a large papier mache model of the features.

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