Montessori Baric Tablets

The Montessori Baric Tablets are an essential part of the Montessori Sensorial Curriculum, designed to refine the stereognostic sense, or the ability to perceive and understand objects through touch.

Hands holding and displaying wooden Baric Tablets next to a small basket, used in Montessori Sensorial activities to differentiate weights
The Baric Tablets are primarily used to refine the child's sense of weight through comparison, helping them develop a deeper understanding of heavy and light
  • 📏Range Age: 3.5 - 5 years (activity should be adjusted based on the child's age and skill level).
  • 🧠 Prerequisites: Sensorial Activities (Tactile Boards, Tactile Tablets), Language Activities (vocabulary building activities for weight and tactile sensations), Cognitive Activities (sorting and classifying by weight, understanding of heavy and light)
  • 🛠️ Enhancement Skills: Baric Discrimination Skills (distinguishing between different weights), Cognitive Development (memory, attention to detail, comparison and contrast of weights), Fine Motor Skills (manipulating the tablets, grading them in order of weight).

This article explores the significance of the baric tablets in the Montessori method, their role in developing the sense of weight discrimination, and practical ways to incorporate them into your child's learning at home.

Content
  1. What are the Montessori Baric Tablets?
  2. Benefits of the Montessori Baric Tablets
  3. Purpose of the Montessori Baric Tablets
  4. Direct Aim
  5. Indirect Aim
  6. Control of Error
  7. Point of Interest
  8. How to Present the Montessori Baric Tablets?
    1. Materials
    2. Presentation
    3. Variations & Extentions
    4. Recommendations
  9. References

What are the Montessori Baric Tablets?

The Montessori Baric Tablets are a set of tablets made from materials of different weights. The child's task is to feel each tablet and group them by weight.

This activity helps children develop their ability to discern subtle differences in weight through touch, enhancing their stereognostic sense.

Benefits of the Montessori Baric Tablets

Integrating the Baric Tablets into your child's learning offers several benefits:

  • ⚖️ Enhances Weight Discrimination: Children learn to distinguish between different weights, refining their sense of touch.
  • 🧠 Develops Cognitive Skills: Matching tablets by weight challenges the child's memory and decision-making abilities.
  • 🤲 Improves Fine Motor Skills: Handling the tablets and comparing their weights refines children's hand movements.
  • 🔍 Encourages Exploration: The activity sparks curiosity about the properties of different materials and their weights.
  • 🧘 Fosters Concentration: Focusing on the tactile experience helps improve the child's attention span.

Purpose of the Montessori Baric Tablets

The purpose of the Montessori Baric Tablets is to develop the child's stereognostic sense, enabling them to explore and understand objects through their weight, and to lay the foundation for further sensory exploration and learning.

The tablets come in sets that are graded in weight, usually with tablets made of different materials or thicknesses to provide varying degrees of heaviness

How to Present the Montessori Baric Tablets?

Materials

  • Three sets of six wooden tablets, each finished with a polish or varnish to enhance their tactile quality. The sets are distinguished by different types of wood, color, and weight, providing a gradient for the child to explore:
    • Light set: Each tablet weighs 20 grams.
    • Medium set: Each tablet weighs 30 grams.
    • Heavy set: Each tablet weighs 40 grams.
  • A blindfold to heighten the child's sense of touch and concentration on weight differences during the activity.

Introduction: Invite the child to join you for an engaging activity. Explain that before starting, it's important to wash your hands and sensitize your fingertips together.

Then, lead the child to the shelf and introduce the first two boxes of baric tablets, highlighting the lightest and heaviest.

Share the name of the material and ask the child to bring each box to the table, one at a time. Have them place the boxes side by side in the upper middle of the table.

Finally, invite the child to take a seat to your left, ready to explore the world of weight and balance.

The following instructions are the basic presentation of Montessori Baric Tablets:

Presentation

  1. Begin by taking out two of each baric tablet and arranging them in two separate piles based on their weight in front of their respective boxes.
  2. Demonstrate to the child how to hold one of the baric tablets on the tips of your fingers.
  3. Pick up another tablet with your other hand, holding it similarly on your fingertips.
  4. Close your eyes and feel the pressure exerted by each tablet, noting the differences.
  5. Explain to the child, "Not only do they look different, but they feel different too."
  6. Invite the child to experience the pressure of the two tablets by placing them on his fingertips.
  7. Ask the child if they can feel a difference between the two tablets.
  8. If the child perceives them as the same, plan to revisit the Baric Tablets on another day.
  9. If the child notices a difference, proceed with the presentation.
  10. Have the child feel two of the heavy tablets simultaneously and then two of the light tablets to demonstrate that they feel the same within their respective groups.
  11. Take out all the tablets and mix them into two different but equal piles, arranging them horizontally.
  12. Explain to the child that you will feel two tablets at a time with your eyes closed to determine if they feel the same or different.
  13. Indicate to the child that the heavier tablets will be placed in one pile to your right and the lighter ones in another pile to your left.
  14. With your eyes closed, hold the top tablet from each pile in each hand, feel the pressure, switch hands, and feel the pressure again.
  15. Place the heavier tablet in the designated pile on the right and the lighter tablet in the pile on the left, arranging these sorted tablets vertically to distinguish them from the unsorted piles.
  16. Continue this process until both piles have been correctly sorted by weight.
  17. Mix the tablets once more and invite the child to work with the tablets as demonstrated, reinforcing their understanding of weight differentiation.

Language: Light, Heavy, positives, comparatives, and superlatives.

Variations & Extentions

Variations

  • Introduce tablets made from different materials, such as wood and metal, to explore variations in weight and texture.
  • Use the baric tablets in a blindfolded matching game, where the child identifies pairs based solely on weight.
  • Incorporate a storytelling element, assigning characters or elements of a story to each weight category to add a narrative dimension to the activity.

Extension

  • Once the child is comfortable with differentiating weights, introduce the concept of ordering the tablets from lightest to heaviest.
  • Combine the baric tablets with a balance scale to visually demonstrate the weight differences and introduce basic measurement concepts.
  • Encourage the child to create their own weight-based challenges, such as finding the combined weight of two light tablets that equals one heavy tablet.

Recommendations

  • Ensure that the tablets are in good condition and that the weight differences are distinct enough for the child to perceive.
  • Observe the child's technique and offer guidance to improve their tactile exploration and weight discrimination skills.
  • Encourage the child to work at their own pace, allowing them to fully engage with the activity and develop a deep understanding of the concept of weight.

References

  • Montessori Life Blog - The Official Blog of the American Montessori Society - American Montessori Society
  • Training Programmes - Association Montessori Internationale
  • Montessori, M. (1967). The Absorbent Mind. New York: Dell Publishing. pp. 130-145.
  • Montessori, M. (1989). To Educate the Human Potential. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 150-165.

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Chris Palomino

Hi! I'm Chris Palomino, a B.S. in Psychology, and a mother of a precious one-year-old girl. Over the past eight years, I've been guiding children, particularly those aged 3 to 6 facing developmental and learning challenges, with a special focus on autism and ADHD.

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