The Riding Club

I feel very strongly that it's important for children to learn about the natural world from a young age. They need to feel connected to what is around them because if they don't have that connection then they won't appreciate it or think twice about destroying it. That's why this year I started incorporating some zoology into Abe and Mimi's schooling so from an early age they are aware of the natural world and all the amazing plants and animals that inhabit it. So far we have gone through living and non-living for the month of October and mammals for November. They both really enjoyed learning the similarities between humans and other animals.

For the last week of mammal study we focused on horses since Abe and Mimi have both been very interested in them lately. So that meant some horse-themed work to learn about horses and a trip to the local riding club in Dubai! It was such a blast. The kids were so happy to see the horses, ride them and feed them.

I was really surprised that Abe got right on the horse without hesitation. He took to it very quickly and it seemed so natural for him. Mimi was a little scared but eventually warmed up to it after holding my hand for a few minutes. It was a great first experience for them and will definitely be something we do more often.

The Pink Tower

The pink tower is one of the many educational materials Dr. Montessori made for her students. I gave Abe and Mimi a lesson on the pink tower (stacking largest to smallest) many months ago just before we left Saudi Arabia using guidelines from infomontessori and "Basic Montessori" by David Gettman, but we recently revisited the lesson mainly for Mimi since she was just 2 years old at the time of the first lesson and now she is 2.5 and showing lots of interest in it. You might wonder, "What makes the pink tower so special?" Well all the materials Dr. Montessori made are the result of her careful observations of children and their development. Every material she designed was to aid the child's development. The pink tower has two distinct purposes and that is to develop visual discrimination of differences in three dimensions and fine muscular coordination, but also indirectly "prepares the child for the concept of numbers" and for "later work in geometry," according to Gettman. 

In this video below you will see Mimi doing the pink tower on her own for the first time. She chose to do this activity, first rolling out the work mat and carefully setting out each piece. If you watch carefully you will see her correct herself as she tries one block and realizes it is not correct for stacking largest to smallest. Also notice that I never interrupted her! I let the process flow, and it is just so beautiful to see her thinking and figuring it out for herself :)

I also just want to note that the formal lesson on the pink tower is making a tower from the largest block to the smallest but the pink tower can be manipulated in many ways. Abe and Mimi explore many other possibilities with the pink tower, which is absolutely fine.