Contemplating Montessori

Where have I been...

Here's an interesting blog I stumbled across today.  Little pearls, I think.  Feel free to share!

A couple entries:

Theory of Loose Parts in Action: Free play at school has been becoming more and more creative and inventive of late. What’s more, we have noticed increased co-operation and fewer fights between the children. (Many captioned photos included.)

Materialized Abstractions: He came to me saying, “I think I’m doing this without material … just with my mind”, so I suggested that he put the material away and check....  He did two precise subtraction problems. The strips of paper he had used, inspired him to make a flag out of them.  He went outside and found a stick and stuck his subtraction problems, front and back to make a ‘subtraction’ flag. (!!)

Looking at the paper on which he did the subtraction problems, I was struck by the neatness. There were no strokes and loops showing the borrowing and changing of quantities,...And I remembered my school days.  If I had shown up with subtraction problems completed like the one above, the teacher would have assumed only one thing – that I had copied it from a friend. If it had been on a test, I would have been knee deep in trouble!