On Montessori & Movable Alphabets

I've received a couple of questions as to how we use our movable alphabet, mentioned in these learning notes. I want to preface this post by saying that I do not feel inclined to follow any Montessori rules when presenting materials to my children. A real Montessorian would probably gasp and faint if she watched how loosely we use Montessori materials in my home. However, I'm not trying to copy a Montessori school, or practice proper Montessori technique. I'm just trying to offer my children opportunities to explore and learn, and I find a few Montessori materials to be particularly helpful to that end.

Maria Montessori was one of the most brilliant educators of all time- that goes without question. I find myself in full agreement with many of her ideas. For example, Montessori emphasized the importance of:

~the child as a person, worthy of our respect
~the importance of attending to work joyfully
~the need to shield the child, according to his or her development
~the deep spirituality innate in all children
~giving children lots of time and space to use as they wish

I whole-heartedly agree with all of that, but even so, we are not very Montessori-ish around here. It probably has something to do with my not being very good at following any particular lesson plan or curriculum as written. I'm always tweaking in an effort to better serve my family.

I'm suspicious of any educational format that requires certain materials to be used in an exact way. I also tend to feel that a good teacher shouldn't need to rely on materials to teach well. A good teacher should be able to teach well using any curriculum under the sun, if she does it in a spirit of love. So instead of "doing Montessori", I borrow ideas and then offer them to my children in a way that speaks to their present needs. A couple of years back, Suzanne wrote about embracing a Montessori view of the child without being hindered by the methodology. It's a beautiful post- one of my favorites.

So... in that spirit, I'll share how we've used The Movable Alphabet, a classic Montessori material. I highly suggest that real Montessorians now click away from this page to avoid being scandalized. ;)

The Movable Alphabet

I made a movable alphabet using cut-up index cards, a sharpie marker, and a craft organizer I got for 40% off at Michael's. I also included some three- and four-letter word picture cards that I found in the school section at Target. I used my sharpie to write the words on the back of the picture cards, to make the cards self-correcting.
Here's how we use it:

Tulip chooses a picture card from one of the drawers on the left-hand side (3-letter or 4-letter words).

She flips the picture card over to reveal the word.

She takes the corresponding letters from their drawers and forms the word, then she puts the letters back in their drawers (which helps teach alphabetical order), and places the word card in the top left drawer, which is empty.

Once she's mastered this, she'll try to make the word by just looking at the picture and sounding out the word.

Tulip also enjoys copying down the word on a piece of paper and perhaps illustrating it. We have a set of Melissa & Doug alphabet stamps, and she sometimes stamps out the word using these. Primrose enjoys using it, too, but she creates her own (longer) words, without picture card cues.

If I were to make the set again, I would make the vowels a different color than the consonants, but that's about all I'd change.

As for other Montessori materials, we have enjoyed various activities and three-part cards from the Montessori for Everyone free printables page. We especially enjoy the Alphabetical Order and Vowel Tree activities from the free Language Arts page. I'd also like to make more use of Montessori tray work (found all over the blogosphere)- especially for my littles. But no rush. We'll get to it when we get to it.

Hope that answers some of your questions. Have a happy weekend, friends!

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