When the child next door can only do additions within 10, a Montessori baby of the same age has already begun to multiply and divide thousands of digits, play a trinomial game, and begin to study solid geometry and planes. If you didn't see it with your own eyes, it would be unbelievable, but when you finish reading this article, you will feel that all this is not surprising. This is the charm of Montessori mathematics.

Mathematics is everywhere in the space we live in. Mathematics is like music. It is also an instinct of human beings. The essence of education is to help humans develop these inherent abilities.

Studies have found that people are very sensitive to the concept of numbers after birth. This can be seen from the orderly movements of children. They can naturally form the order of the surrounding environment and the order of their lives. This is the keen sensitivity of human beings to the concept of mathematics. This kind of sensibility can only be obtained by pursuing such a correct procedure, and we usually call this state "mathematical mind".

Mathematics has inherent order and strives to show the most accurate results. People's sensitivity to details (strong requirements for order and accuracy) exists in the early childhood, which is consistent with the characteristics of mathematics. Montessori believes that in order to become a series of mathematical thinking modes, it is necessary to first combine and decompose the internal mathematics, that is, to practice separately. Only when you really face the so-called mathematics with numbers and problems, will you have the basis for solving. Therefore, before starting real mathematics learning, one needs to go through a long sensory learning period, which is called the preparatory period before mathematics.

This view also coincides with the traditional teaching method that children should not start symbolic learning too early, and need to learn through specific things first.

Let's take a look at how Montessori establishes the inner connection between the sensory period and the mathematics learning, and the mathematics learning runs through the entire learning life.

As can be seen from the above picture, sensory education is the foundation of Montessori mathematics education. Before learning mathematics, we use a lot of sensory work to help children build up their inner mathematics mind. Montessori sensory education includes the training of senses such as vision, touch, hearing, smell and taste.

Visual training is to help children improve their visual perception of measurement, to identify size, height, thickness, length, shape, color, and different geometric shapes; tactile exercises are to help children distinguish whether objects are smooth or rough, distinguish hot and cold temperatures, and distinguish objects The weight, size and thickness of the sound; auditory training is to make children accustomed to distinguish the difference in sound, so that they can not only distinguish the tone color and pitch, but also develop the preliminary aesthetic and appreciation abilities; the sense of smell and taste Training focuses on improving the sensitivity of children's sense of smell and taste.

We categorize these sensory work into three categories of pairing, classification, and sequence work. These three types of work often appear in combination.

Now, let's take a concrete look at how these three types of work are carried out.

One. Pairing (P): Establish the concept of equals and help young children discover equivalence relationships through one-to-one experience.

Does it feel amazing to let the child feel that this is the so-called one-to-one relationship from finding another identical little sock? Starting from the pairing of objects and objects, it can gradually develop to the pairing of equal proportions of objects and planes, then to the pairing of planes and planes, and then to the pairing of planes and similar planes. This sequence is completely the same as the sequence of learning solid geometry to plane geometry in the future. The same is also the basis for establishing the concept of number and quantity.

The pairing of objects and objects, mother's bottles and jars are good teaching materials for babies to learn.

For the matching of real objects and planes, you can print out small items commonly used by babies for matching.

Plane and plane pairing

One-to-one correspondence between numbers and quantities

two. Classification (S): establish the concept of inclusion, classify things according to things, let children understand the relationship between part and the whole, and cultivate children's analogy and reasoning ability.

Through early vision training to distinguish different colors, children gradually have the ability to distinguish the same thing from different things. This distinction gradually cultivates children's ability to recognize the internal differences and connections of things, helps children understand the whole and the parts, and lays the foundation for future multiplication and division operations, and cultivates children's general ability to develop the internal logical connections of things.

Starting from the distinction of colors, we are still gradually recognizing the difference of things

By distinguishing the arrangement and size of the same color, the child has the ability to master binomial (a+b)^2=a^2+b^2+2ab and trinomial at the sensory level