Read HERE for a full description of this Montessori activity.We reused things around the house to do this. Mini muffin tray, a bowl of peanuts (same pack as those we used for dry pouring activity we did a year ago), a pair of tongs.
Then I showed her how to use the tongs and instructed her to put 1 nut in each compartment, moving gradually from left to right, top to bottom. When she is done, she put the nut back into the bowl, then I instructed this time to put 2 nuts in each compartments, and so on...
See from the photo how focused little children can be when doing this kind of work.
To them it is fun work, in the process they gain:
- fine motor skill practise
- holding tongs properly >>> early practise to holding pencils properly (pre-writing skills)
- maths >>> counting 1, 2, 3....
- math >>> fractions, seeing how a bowl of nuts can be divided into so many small portions
- science >>> how to visual volume of the bowl of nuts changes as it gets separated into so many portions, and be restored back into the same bowl later.
