Pre-Primary: Beginning Sound Boxes…
Five pink boxes appeared on one of the language shelves. Inside, an assortment of objects can be found with a piece of colorful felt. Five letters adorn the outside of the box, indicating the beginning letter sounds that the objects represent. One child chose the box with “smtda” on the label.
She spread out the felt on the table. She looked at each letter at the top of the felt and made the sound that letter makes: “sss”, “mmm”, “ttt”, “dd”, “aaa, apple”. She reached into the box and her first object was the apple. She placed it in the column below the letter “a”. She moved on to a monkey. She checked in with a teacher to find out what certain objects were, such as an ax and dinosaur. With each object, she whispered the word, then isolated the beginning sound; “monkey…mm…monkey.” She found the letter she knew made that sound. When she had sorted all of the objects in the box, she discovered she had exactly three items in each column which is what Maria Montessori referred to as the “control of error”.
