Friday, January 15, 2010

Salt Letters

Montessori philosophies focus on the infinite worth of the senses in learning.  Our efforts to incorporate a natural sensorial education into our days has led to some wonderful moments.  One such moment happened yesterday.  Questions arouse yesterday morning during a snack regarding just how pretzels are made.  Trying to answer them led to the decision to make pretzels as part of our dinner.  (Such fun and yummy yummy!) While we were working with the salt I had an idea of how to incorporate another sensory activity into our writing exercises.  We spread ~3/4 cup of salt onto a cookie sheet and little fingers were completely absorbed with practicing upper and lowercase letters for such a long time.  When done we talked about the best cookie sheet to use for the activity and poured the salt into a jar, labeled it and now store it with the cookie sheets.  It is now available for her to use whenever she wants to gather her materials and proceed with the exercise on her own.  105_4623

This activity is most easily done in the kitchen.  It also lends itself well to practicing control of materials, and sweeping!!

I have definitely found that as our days become filled with Montessori inspired sensorial learning, ideas and thoughts come with greater frequency to aid in our learning.  Their is no end to a mothers inspiration! 

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