Montessori approach to 6-9 years children-10

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HOW TO INSPIRE 6+ YEAR OLD CHILDREN?
Very often many of us say that what ever we do , children never listen to us, they feel boarded and never concentrate in the activities. But Dr.Montessori has discovered 6+ year old children' s mind and understood how to inspire them?
From the birth time children slowly observe the environment around them and imbibe the facts and incidents. From the age of 6 they start to abstract their ideas, experiences and feelings. Slowly they start to develop the inner knowledge.
This article will help the teachers and parents to inspire the children towards various exercises to shape out their knowledge. Knowledge is the inner thirst of every child. But the thirst for knowledge differs from child to child. Schools and parents need to accept the fact that every aspect on this planet is a source of knowledge. Children must be allowed to explore and choose their own work. But they must be insisted to have an allover view of all subjects.
Any aspect in our environment will be the source of knowledge. So we always begin any concept with a story, reading an article, showing a picture, showing an object related to the concept.
6+ year old children are very much attracted to such things. In our class rooms there is table called '' focus table''. Every day we place some thing on that table . Children when enter into the class, just see that table. They feel very happy and excited to talk about it . They also approach us and start talking about it. We also just give them some hints and encourage them to get ready for the lesson presentation.
Yesterday I have experienced a wonderful class across the school in teaching my language . Let me share that beautiful experience.
On last Sunday I got the chance to visit a coastal area in my state. That area is very famous in our history. It is the place where river Cauvery empties into Bay Of Bengal. This is the area where the ancient port town Poompuhar was located before 2000 years. It was the capital of Chola empire. But the entire city got washed away by great tsunami waves in 2nd century A.D.
When I saw the beach I was taken back to the olden days. I collected the pure silt soil deposited by river Cauvery. The waves brought many broken pieces of wood, bricks, pebbles, tiles from the sea. They are the remains of the Poompuhar city. I also collected them.
Already I have presented the history of ancient Tamil nadu from grade 3 till grade 7. On Monday I just placed them on the focus table in grade 6. We had the presentation and children were very very silent and observing the facts and just appreciated the remains and went back to olden days through their imagination. The questions asked by them were wonderful. Slowly the geography teacher entered and started talking about soil and sea currents. Then the History teacher gave the presentation about '' sources to learn history? ''
By afternoon the news spreaded to grade 5 and 7 then I was invited to give the presentation. Children who do not listen to language classes also gathered and settled in the front row and observed the presentation.
Then slowly the news went to primary classes and I gave the presentation to grade 3 and 4.
In each level the abstraction of knowledge was different. Let us see some samples of questions asked by children belong to different grades.
Grade 3: What was the king's name who ruled the city?
Grade 4: Can we dive into the sea and see the entire city even today?
Grade 5: Can we list out various jewels used by Poompuhar citizens?
Grade 6: I want to learn some of the literature connected with this city?
Grade 7: How can you prove that these remains belong only to this city?
Grade 8,9: Children just saw the remains and said thanks for showing them and left.
In primary level questions were more about the facts like king's name, how old was the city?, story about Cauvery etc.
In elementary level they explored the remains and talked more about culture and civilization.
But every child enjoyed this presentation. A Korean boy who do not know Tamil also enjoyed and said that he wants to go and see the spot in Christmas holidays.
This shows that when a child passes each phase of life the interest of knowledge changes but in all phase the need for the knowledge is the same.
For 2 days my Tamil class taught history, geology, geography, literature, science and religion. So every object can be the focusing object. We need to come out of the shell and think wide and change our view about lessons and knowledge. There is a famous Tamil proverb , '' vallavanukku pullum aayudham''. This means a wise man can use even a grass as a powerful weapon. Let us think!