Putting Things Into Holes

Earlier this week I observed Happy putting these pegs into the hole of one of our shelves.

  Happy has been working with the material above for quite some time. Happy loves putting the pegs in the hole and using the hammer. I  think the best part of this work for Happy was putting the pegs in the hole which she is very good at.  In effort to stop putting the pegs down our holes of our shelves I presented her the Knobbed Cylinder Block 1. Let me just share with you that she is no longer putting the pegs in the holes and is very happy with her new work.

                                                                           
                                                                  

Confession: Before I begin using the Montessori Method I used this shelf for various things. When the children would put things down the holes of the shelves, I would stop them by covering the holes. They would manage to uncover the hole and still keep putting things down the hole. A power struggle would take place and I would "win" by removing the shelf.  Now I keep this shelf in our learning enviroment to look for readiness that Happy demonstrated. Isn't it a wonderful thing that if we can continue to be life long learners we can even learn things from how a particular way a shelf is made. Most important, if we are observers of the child we can follow the child and be able to understand what next step they are needing in their development.