Trees and Leaves

For a college assignment we had to make our own Maths material and I was stuck for ideas so I went searching for something simple but aesthetically appealing and I found this exercise on My Montessori Journey! I changed it slightly though to include a "0" tree. Just to coincide with the time of year I used green leaves for my presentation. 

 

I love it when it is all laid out! For further extensions of the exercise I made Autumn coloured  leaves...

...and also apple trees!!

This means that the exercise will be kept appealing as it can be changed with the changing seasons! I got the tree template here. It is important that when the child moves onto Maths that their ability to count to and recognise 1-10 is well cemented. There are 55 leaves/apples, the exact amount needed to complete the exercise. If the child has too much or too little leaves left over, they will be able to see for themselves that they went wrong somewhere and will be able to correct themselves...(auto-education and control of error).  It can sometimes happen that the child can move onto the teens too quickly so having extra exercises like this to go along with the 1-10 Montessori materials, such as, the Spindle Box, the Number Rods, Sandpaper Numerals, Cut-out Numerals and Counters etc. really helps to lay that strong foundation. I've done this activity with a few children. It requires alot of concentration on the child's part but its well worth to see the sense achievement they feel when they complete it!! Also I noted with my own nephew how precisely he placed the leaves, right at the edge of the branches!

Here it is ready for the shelf (minus the tray again!!) This exercise would be worked with on a mat on the floor. Alot of Montessori materials are worked with on mats

Small, Medium, Large

Here is a simple classification exercise. This would be classed as a later Sensorial exercise as it uses abstract images rather than concrete material.

I got these cards from Montessori Printshop. The best thing is they were free to download! So I decided to put small, medium and large onto 3 different colour pages, 

orange for small, 

 green for medium

and red for large

At the back of each card I put the corresponding colour dot (control of error).

Having an inbuilt control of error means that the child can see for themselves if they are right or wrong, this is called auto-education or self-correcting. The child learns from his/her mistake and therefore the teacher/parent doesn't have to correct them, (auto-education increases a child's self-confidence). Before this exercise children would have graded concrete materials like the Knobbed Cylinders, Knobless Cylinders ,the Pink Tower, the Long Rods, the Broad Stairs and the Colour Tablet boxes (to name just a few!)  Further possible extensions could be

big, bigger, biggest

small, smaller, smallest 

Here it is all ready for the shelf except that it should be on a tray! Forgive me!

I would probably have the words stuck onto the pages in the classroom but for the purpose of the post I didn't.