Authentic, real experiences are critical for children. One of my Montessori instructors at MEIPN opened a session with an exercise she coined “Abstract Orange” to emphasize the importance of authentic, concrete experiences for children and their developing brains.
Why Concrete Experiences are So Important for Kids?
She said: “We are adults with the ability to think abstractly so imagine you are holding a ripe orange. Tell me what words you might use to describe the orange.”
We immediately began shouting our words like:
Orange
Juicy
Bumpy
Sweet
Sour
Wet
Moist
Bright
Round
Juicy
Pulpy
Stringy
Fleshy
Refreshing
Then she said, “Imagine a plastic orange used for play.”
OrangeJuicy
BumpySweet Sour WetMoist
Bright
RoundJuicy Pulpy Stringy Fleshy Refreshing
Then she showed us an image of an orange:
OrangeJuicyBumpySweet Sour WetMoist
BrightRoundJuicy Pulpy Stringy Fleshy Refreshing
Then she showed us an illustration of an orange:
OrangeJuicyBumpySweet Sour WetMoistBrightRoundJuicy Pulpy Stringy Fleshy Refreshing
You get the point. This exercise is really meant to make a point for educators and parents. I suppose you could also do the exercise with older children. I hope you enjoyed this exercise. I will post the second part of this series tomorrow.
Warmly,
Marnie