Drawing a path from the Royal College of Art to the heart of Early Learning. It turns out there’s nothing ‘child’s play’ about child’s play.
Joined April 2011
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380 Photos and videos
A #nursery child joyfully holds a single #Montessori ‘Golden Bead’ in one hand and a 1,000 Golden Beads, in the form of a cube, in the other.
He’s enthralled by the difference in magnitude, number & weight.
He holds 10 & 100, feeling their relationship.
It got me drawing…
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Nursery child draws an elephant with wonderful expression & succinctness, a simple line and perfectly judged areas of tone capture the imagination:
“I’ve drawn it for you…It’s sitting down and feeling sad because it’s the last day of school…and his trunk is crumpled up”
Joy
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Nursery child invites us into some thinking on shape and space:
“I’ve made a face do you want to see?
You turn the circle and the mouth can be happy or sad…
But I can’t decide if square eyes are happier than triangle eyes!”
We look, wonder and I see what he means.
Joy!
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A nursery child explores the Montessori Shape Boxes.
She engages with the properties of congruence, shape, colour, & magnitude, using them to create imaginative & varied designs:
“I’ve made a rocket & there are lots of stars around — every star is going to be different!”
Joy!
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Nursery child plays on the “Number Ten Study Rug” with Numicon
“You can make 10 with 5 and 5 and that’s fair but you can’t make ten with 6 and 6 “
“You can’t make ten with 7 and 7.”
He laughs.
“You’d have to squash a 7 down into 2 and 1 which isn’t fair … Or three”
Joy.
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A Nursery child picks fresh leaves & daisies and lays them out with careful attention to position and 1-1 correspondence.
She adjusts any spacial and numerical errors as she goes:
“Squirrel is making a picnic, all his friends get one daisy each so they don’t squabble!”
Joy!
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When my pupils playfully improvise with wooden blocks, shapes & spacial relationships, I can’t help recalling John Coltrane’s sentiment:
‘Damn the rules,
it’s the feeling that matters’
And when I see the speed at which ‘feeling’ translates into learning, I think:
‘Yep, he has a point!’
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I’m struck by the capacity of young minds, whose age is measured in months, to learn at a speed much greater than mine, measured in years.
Can I match the speed of learning they’ve achieved in their 36 months since birth?
No!
Working with brilliant minds is a serious business!
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The ‘Poo Study Box’
Made from an old wine box;
The Bristol Stool Chart as a key;
7 specimen jars for analysis;
Fake Poo;
Numerals as labels for classification;
Rug to work on;
Vocabulary: liquid, solid, viscosity, classify, order, key ..e.t.c
#eyfs #earlyyears #science #maths
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Just about to teach the letter ‘Y’
Turns out it’s been changing it’s shape and expanding a songbook of sounds across the globe for some time now…
#teach #eyfs #phonics #earlyyears #earlyreading #edutwitter #nursery #montessori #Y #letters #teaching #letterY
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A #nursery child’s independent play with the #montessori wooden letter box:
He lays out the letter rugs cards, making words and reading as he plays.
Taking it all in & looking within the words he joyfully jumps up & down in excitement:
‘Look at the vowels … i o a o e o e …!’
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"Looking & Drawing are as much a process of unlearning
as learning”
My Art College tutors told me.
Unlearning!
The idea of ‘Unlearning’ as a positive process really
stuck with me,
it’s shaped my relationship with error,
and if I embrace it,
Unlearning is a great friend.
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jo0L5s retweeted
26 Oct 2024
Brilliant how @Joolone creates the conditions for mathematical play and creativity in his nursery.
Read about the cycles of study made accessible by study boxes and rugs (open-access article):
atm.org.uk/Mathematics-Teach…
24 Oct 2024
Have you read the open-access article in MT293 available for all to read?- The Montessori cycle of activity and learning in mathematics - Study Rugs by Julian Swindale.
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