Grace and courtesy exercises - Walking
Exercises of Grace and Courtesy
(2) Walking. Yes, just walking, not walking on the treadmills :-)
Materials:
Place to Walk
Child/children
Presentation:
1.Invite one or two children to come and join you.
2.Ask them to stand erect with their hands at their sides.
3.Demonstrate first by walking in a chosen direction.
4.Feet should be as quiet as possible.
5.Invite the child/children to come and walk with you or by themselves.
Variations and Extensions:
1.Walk around furniture.
2.Walk around the playground.
Points of Interest:
1.Proper posture
2.One foot in front of the other
3.Walking close without touching others
Control of Error:
1.The teacher
2.The children
3.Bumping into each other
Aims:
Poise, responsibility towards others and objects, control, coordination
Age:
2 ½ - 6 years old
Language:
Walk, balance, posture
Why my child won’t listen?
I get asked this question quite often.
Are you interested to know what Maria Montessori’s view on this?
I have a 4 years old joined my class in January, he was what the Cantonese called “gao jin” —literally a “stubborn cow”:-)
He broke a glass pitcher, spilled the beans and refused to pick them up on the first day.
We played walking on the line, he couldn’t walk in straight line and wiggled like a worm on the chair, pushed the chair with his butts and gave out loud noise, couldn’t solve a 10-piece puzzles and wouldn’t pick them up when he didn’t want to continue.
When we played silence game, he couldn’t hear his name being called even though I called his names louder and louder for about 10 times.
Should we have started “teaching” him, do you think he can absorb?
We make sure we play silence game and walking on the line with him everyday, sometime twice a day. By the third or fourth day, he jumped up when I just whispered his name from another corner of the classroom.
One of those paradox of Montessori education. If you want your child to listen, you don’t speak louder and louder so they can hear, but to bring him silence and quietness, so that he learned to listen carefully.
Dr. Montessori invented this game when she was working with children who were partially deaf. She found that partially deaf children’s hearing was often improved when they learned to listen carefully to sounds.
Today is the last school day of his third week, he has not broken anything since the last pitcher, he is also able to sit down for 20 minutes, completing a 20 piece puzzle, all by himself. To me, that’s a big achievement for the child.
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