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A #nursery child joyfully holds a single #Montessori ‘Golden Bead’ in one hand and a 1,000 Golden Beads, in the form of a cube, in the other. He’s enthralled by the difference in magnitude, number & weight. He holds 10 & 100, feeling their relationship. It got me drawing…

@OriginalRobyn Nor I - and I’m a trained artist and never have I achieved such directness of expression!

@Joolone Blimey I couldn’t even draw that!

Nursery child draws an elephant with wonderful expression & succinctness, a simple line and perfectly judged areas of tone capture the imagination: “I’ve drawn it for you…It’s sitting down and feeling sad because it’s the last day of school…and his trunk is crumpled up” Joy

@TraceyHamer3 The conversation continued: I said that I thought the triangle (eyes) had told a joke and he responded “and the squares are laughing!” 😂

@Joolone I understand what he means too. The triangle eyes look happier to me. We learn so much from our children. 🥰

Nursery child invites us into some thinking on shape and space: “I’ve made a face do you want to see? You turn the circle and the mouth can be happy or sad… But I can’t decide if square eyes are happier than triangle eyes!” We look, wonder and I see what he means. Joy!

@jillpg_jill You’ve just made a recipe for learning!

@Joolone Imaginative, creative, mathematical, child initiated PLAY ❤️

A nursery child explores the Montessori Shape Boxes. She engages with the properties of congruence, shape, colour, & magnitude, using them to create imaginative & varied designs: “I’ve made a rocket & there are lots of stars around — every star is going to be different!” Joy!

Nursery child plays on the “Number Ten Study Rug” with Numicon “You can make 10 with 5 and 5 and that’s fair but you can’t make ten with 6 and 6 “ “You can’t make ten with 7 and 7.” He laughs. “You’d have to squash a 7 down into 2 and 1 which isn’t fair … Or three” Joy.

When my ideas stall, play is the spark I turn to. It’s the fire starter that breathes life into my sleepy designs. It unwraps and shakes awake thinking. Play excels at this, to tame play or try and contain it is to dim plays brilliance and silence the magic.

Since my pupils are the main stakeholders in their learning, why plan it without them? And, if I want them to drive their own learning, the sooner they’re in the driver’s seat, the more prepared they’ll be when the road is theirs to travel alone.

A Nursery child picks fresh leaves & daisies and lays them out with careful attention to position and 1-1 correspondence. She adjusts any spacial and numerical errors as she goes: “Squirrel is making a picnic, all his friends get one daisy each so they don’t squabble!” Joy!

@ReBuckEdu @_MissieBee W

@_MissieBee This is Dylan's latest....to name his own painting at nursery....too cute!

Just left my son (he’s 2.5) doing some drawing whilst I tidied up and he came to show me that he’d just written his name 😭😭 Having taught writing for 11 years (but in mainly UKS2), seeing it develop from the very beginning is genuinely ✨fascinating✨

That moment when you walk past a little toaster left on a garden wall and you realise it sums up your state of mind!

@wishilikedmaths I suppose I could have asked “What is it” and he might have said “A snail with wings” But since he was scratching his head I asked “What are you thinking?” Two very different questions’!

@Joolone So good you asked the question or you would never have known!

Nursery child creates a beautifully executed & concise line drawing. He pauses, sits back, and scratches his head. I ask “What are you thinking about?” Child “What It’s like to be a snail with wings” Joy!

Wherever you begin your journey through the mathematical landscape you’re guaranteed to bump into someone who started somewhere else.

‘It’s not how you fall, but how you get up’ (in progress)

When my pupils playfully improvise with wooden blocks, shapes & spacial relationships, I can’t help recalling John Coltrane’s sentiment: ‘Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that matters’ And when I see the speed at which ‘feeling’ translates into learning, I think: ‘Yep, he has a point!’

@BirdsallMaeve @helenjwc @Manor_Wood_Pri What a beautiful drawing in so many ways - utter joy!

This is I's recording of her throwing a dice. She realised she'd done far too many to represent 6...she looked carefully and copied 3 and 3 as she self corrected. Brilliant mathematical mark making in fs this morning @Manor_Wood_Pri

@teachwellall @SollyKathryn Yes Steve - these are great questions 🙏! Children are incredible learners, have you or I mastered a language in 36 months without a single formal lesson? I think Maria #montessori s idea of the absorbent mind is a useful model for thinking about teaching very young children…

I’m struck by the capacity of young minds, whose age is measured in months, to learn at a speed much greater than mine, measured in years. Can I match the speed of learning they’ve achieved in their 36 months since birth? No! Working with brilliant minds is a serious business!