I'm starting a home preschool!

I'm so excited to be a teacher! I've been playing school ever since I was a little girl, and now I'm finally going to have a real classroom! With 8 boys and 1 girl! I'm still hoping to recruit some more girls. (Otherwise, poor Elle.) But I do kind of specialize in boys. (I have three of my own.) So I don't mind a bit. I'm unofficially calling it the Science Discovery Preschool. My school will emphasize science, naturally. But what will make the school really great is that I use a project approach to learning. I am very committed to that.

I'm already having fun preparing materials for my classroom. Thanks to Merritt's cousin (who is a general contractor), I am now the proud owner of a set of homemade Montessori baric tablets. The wood is beautiful to look at, interesting to touch, and smells earthy. Baric tablets are very sensorial. Students sort the tablets by weight (light, medium, and heavy). As an extension, students can sequence 6 different tablets by weight. A blindfold is optional. Thanks Brian for gifting me the wood and the time it took to make them. I am seriously in love with these. It makes me happy just to look at them. Amber, I hope you can find a way to make this activity for your classroom too. It would be fun to swap stories about how the children use them. Cheers!

Baric tablets extension:

The student sorts six different tablets by weight from lightest to heaviest. Here is the order: cedar, pine, walnut, cherry, hickory, wenge. The student uses a balance to check. Alternatively, the tablets could be numbered on one side.

 Baric tablets classic:
The student brings the tablets to the table or floor with a mat. Here is pine, oak, and wenge (3 of each).

 

The student mixes up the tablets on the mat then closes their eyes (or is blindfolded). Alternatively, the student can mix the tablets by stacking them to build a tower on the mat.

 The student holds each tablet in the palm of his hand then sorts the tablets by weight into 3 groups (light, medium, heavy).

 

 The student opens his eyes and checks that the tablets have been sorted correctly (the colors match).

The tablets are then returned to the shelf, ready for the next person to use.

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