How to develop the understanding of Space by Children: how to make them able to describe relative positions or movements of things or persons using the correct prepositions .
1st lesson: Children are free to play with a new material
Evaluation : Children take much pleasure to handle this material and are very creative .
2nd lesson :
Put on the table the cubes box and large green cardboards.
Instruction to each Child : arrange the
elements to your liking on the cardboard, I will make a picture
of your work when it is finished.
Evaluation : beautiful creations,
but nothing is posed “on” something , I shall
reformulate my instruction so that several topological concepts
can be studied.
3rd lesson :
Describe relative positions or displacements with space
indicators referring to varied stable reference marks.
Instructions : arrange the
elements as you like on your cardboard, but mind that animals
or trees must be laid on an element, I will make a picture
of your work when it is finished.
Right expression: I have put the animals inside the barriers (only 2 pupils used the word "inside"). The Teacher compares it to “in”.
Right expression: I have put three fir trees on the barrier.
Right expression: I have put the animals around the tower. There are many of them .
Assessment: During the search of the right expression, Children introduce concepts of quantities automatically, by
counting the cubes or the fir trees which they lay on the table.
4th lesson:
Developing capacity to observe forms and sizes: Reproducing a group of simple objects . Reproducing the organization in space of a limited group of objects by handling them.
Instruction : here is a picture of what Mario (or another Child) made last time (lesson 3) : try to make the same.
ASSESSMENT: A large majority of Children made it right . Each time I have asked a Child an individual question ( for instance : “where have you put this tree?) he has been able to answer with the appropriate term (on, around, on the side, inside, outside ...)
I have seen also many Children counting cubes to make the tower , or animals they were handling .
When a Child makes a mistake, we
recount together. Sometimes another Child reacts and says:
“you must remove some…”
5th meeting: Copy of models .
Children reproduce the Models and show me their result.
To see complementary work carried out by Delphine Brocard in motricity, click here.