Maria Montessori believed that children went through ‘sensitive periods’, which she described as ‘windows of opportunity’ for learning something specific, with the greatest ease. A lot of research has supported this idea. For example, we now know that children develop language skills far more easily in their developmental years, than later in life. Around the age of two or three she observed a sensitivity for small objects, where children were fixated on small objects and tiny details. During this time you will be amazed at the things your child might notice, that you have overlooked, or wonder at how they can be so fascinated by things that seem so inconsequential to us!
You might also wonder what it is that your child is learning during this period, what can playing with all these little objects do for your child’s development? Well, in order for your child to understand the bigger picture of the world around them, they need to deconstruct it and break it down to the smallest level. They need to understand the smaller pieces that make up this bigger picture, examine them in great detail and then see how they fit together. When you think of it this way I think it makes sense that it is so interesting for them, it is human nature to want to know how the world around us works and so much of it is incredibly amazing when you take a step back and see it from a child's perspective. When the child is interacting with tiny objects they are also required to develop their physical skills, their hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, the pincer grip that will later be used to hold a pencil and a fine control of movement.
Jake has been quite fascinated by small objects for the last few months. We have a box of assorted objects at school, which we play ‘I Spy’ with, a game where the teacher will spell out a word, C – A – T and the child will have to hear the word and find the object. Jake has for a long time, loved to take out the box and line the objects up, talking about them and looking at them for extended periods of time. He has also loved doing this with small toys at home like little cars and animals. A month or two ago I started putting, what Montessori called, a ‘Treasure Basket’ on his shelf at home. A treasure basket tends to be a basket with a dozen or two assorted items inside it for your child to investigate and explore. They can have a theme and it is nice if they can have different things within it that appeal to all of the five senses. They can be tailored to any age, when Jake was a baby I had a basket of different miniature (but big enough nothing could be swallowed) kitchen items for him to explore; a small wooden spoon, mini whisk, little pastry brush etc. I have seen people make baskets with all the objects the same colour so that they can focus on teaching their child that colour, or all the objects made of a certain material such as wood or metal. At school we often have a treasure basket of different containers, which the children love. They practice opening and closing the lids, learning to match which lid goes on which box and they like to smell the containers and talk about what was in them!
I often have parents say that their young child needs to be sitting with them at all times when they are playing or that their child can’t concentrate on something for long before they move off to the next thing. I really think this is a great activity to put on the shelf for any child like this. If you want to extend the amount of time your child can concentrate and work independently, this seems to be a fantastic way. In order to keep it a fascinating exercise for your child you will want to swap some or all of the objects every week and experiment to find what kinds of things they are really interested in. I found that just adding to the treasure basket is not a good thing, a limited amount of objects is best or it becomes overwhelming and they end up tipping it everywhere and making more mess than they are happy to clean up at the end of the exercise. Just like with their toy collections, less seems to be more. You can show your child how to take the objects out and stand them up, talk about what they are and what they do/ are used for/ noises they make etc. If you can see your child is interested and absorbed take a step back and see how long they are happy to work independently. As an extension for older children who want you to be involved, play the I Spy game, spelling out the letter sounds and seeing if they can make the word.
It isn't necessary to have a theme and mostly it is easiest to keep it fresh if you just have to rummage through some drawers for a new bunch of odds and ends. Here are some ideas for themes if you feel like it:
· Bottles and containers - you can put some little moon stones or marbles inside the containers as the children seem to love this extra element of discover
· Magnetic vs not magnetic – I have just given Jake a magnet and he has explored what it attracts and what it doesn’t
· Floating and sinking - Might be a good one to do outside if you want to allow them to work independently without a huge mess being created!
· Animal/ Dinosaurs – good for learning the names and sounds animals make
· Colour baskets – all the objects of the same colour
· Metal, wood, cloth – all the objects made of the same material
· Lego is great because there is so many little fiddly bits to click in and out. Jake loves fiddling with Lego, not really building, fiddling away connecting trailers, clicking people on and off etc. He also quite likes Barbies, talking about the body parts, fiddling with all the little bits that come with them, putting on shoes and clothes, they are all great fine motor skill exercises and grab his attention.
The next time you go to the effort of taking your little one to somewhere like the zoo and they just want to look at the gumnuts on the path or watch the ants, don't be frustrated, try and see the world from your child's perspective and marvel at how amazing every little component of it is!
"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day,
you may look back and realise they were the big things"
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