A companion material to the Knobbed Cylinders, the Knobless Cylinders offer children extended practice with the relationships of height, width and volume. Four boxes are available to explore, with each containing a series of ten cylinders of varying relationships. In one box, the height of the cylinders is identical, but the widths change. In another, the widths are identical, but the height changes. In a third, the width decreases as the height increases. In a fourth, the wi

There are some parts of the Montessori classroom that seem to get all the attention: the beautiful Practical Life materials, the engaged constructions in the Sensorial area, the precise Math lessons or the carefully sequenced Language materials. But there's another area of the classroom that's often overlooked: the Cultural Materials. The Cultural materials introduce the child to his or her place in the world, offering the child opportunities to learn about place and commu

You'd be hard pressed to visit any Montessori early childhood classroom in the world and not find the Knobbed Cylinders on the shelf. From the first block that finds its way into the Toddler classrooms to the full complement of four cylinder blocks that the Early Childhood classrooms enjoy, the Knobbed Cylinders are a foundational material that naturally attracts the young child to work. Designed to isolate the relationship between dimension and volume, each cylinder block of

The Early Childhood Montessori classrooms provide rich supports as children refine their abilities to perceive through their senses and to order and classify what they perceive. Each all the senses is represented in the Sensorial area of the curriculum, with materials to help build children's visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory and gustatory senses. The "sixth" sense is the stereognostic sense, and it's represented here, too. The stereognostic sense, sometimes called tact

The Montessori Math materials are distinct for their ability to make concrete otherwise abstract concepts and, by doing so, to allow children to master mathematical concepts and relationships earlier than you may remember having learned them in school. Take the fraction materials, for example. While children use fractions all the time ("Can I have just half the cookie?") most traditional math sequences don't introduce them until Elementary school. In Montessori classrooms, th

The Montessori classrooms is filled with materials which are both wonder-ful and didactic, introducing specific, precise concepts but doing so in an elegant presentation. The Montessori Bells are a perfect example of this balance between grace and practicality, making concrete and self-correcting experiences with auditory discrimination and the diatonic scale. The Bells include a series of individual, simple bells, each on its own platform and representing one of the tone

A companion material to the Knobbed Cylinders, the Knobless Cylinders offer children extended practice with the relationships of height, width and volume. Four boxes are available to explore, with each containing a series of ten cylinders of varying relationships. In one box, the height of the cylinders is identical, but the widths change. In another, the widths are identical, but the height changes. In a third, the width decreases as the height increases. In a fourth, the wi

There are some parts of the Montessori classroom that seem to get all the attention: the beautiful Practical Life materials, the engaged constructions in the Sensorial area, the precise Math lessons or the carefully sequenced Language materials. But there's another area of the classroom that's often overlooked: the Cultural Materials. The Cultural materials introduce the child to his or her place in the world, offering the child opportunities to learn about place and commu

We can sometimes underestimate the power of the Sensorial materials, thinking about them only as simple activities that let children practice using their senses. They are great practice- that's true- but they're also important tools for teacher observation, to understand children's development and the refinement of the tools through which the rest of the curriculum will unfold. It's important, then, to think about what to look for when you're observing children's sensory deve

The Sensorial materials may emphasize the development and refinement of the senses, but they are equally powerful tools for supporting the child's mathematical mind. Elegantly constructed, these materials introduce elements of geometry and algebra through hands-on, concrete, didactic exploration. The child first explores qualities of dimension: height, width and depth. The Pink Tower, Broad Stair, Red Rods, Knobbed and Knobless Cylinder Blocks give children the opportunity to