During the Easter holidays at the end of the first quarter of school, we had our workshop for all who help in the Afterschool programs (ASP) in the 5 ASP centres. Dr. Wolfgang Hermann has been busy since January to acquaint himself extensively with the Montessori Mathematics program. Especially the children in the lower grades struggle to grasp basic concepts of numbers. Here the Montessori material helps them a lot through the beads which are used to give them a sense of quantity. They count beads from one to thousand. The beads are used to introduce the decimal system. Since the material is quite expensive, we have made some material ourselves.
In the workshop, we have now prepared the next step of introducing teen numbers of 10-19. The first step is to show the children the bead stair (see photo) which helps them to see how the different coloured beads from 1-9 form a triangle. Once the children are able to form teen numbers with the beads, we move on to the teen boards where the teens are written down. The Montessori principle in teaching Maths is: we start with the concrete and move to the abstract on the basis of the concrete. Only when the child has grounded experience of quantity, we can move on the abstract, the symbol. The teen boards which are also self made help the children to develop numbers from 11-19 by adding numbers. The staff likes teaching in this way, because they see when the children do understand. Then, when a child cannot follow, they go back to the beads.
In the second part of the workshop we discussed a new lesson on HIV and AIDS. Statistics show that in the age group of 10-19 (!!!) AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa (second leading cause of death among adolescents globally), according to UNAIDS on 17.2.2015. This is really scary. In the After school program we meet children on a daily basis without pressure to teach a curriculum.
Dr Wolfgang Hermann presented a lesson to us about bacteria and virus and how the human body protects itself through body fluids. What do childrenaged 10-16 need to understand so that they can protect themselves against HIV/AIDS? They must have an idea of bacteria, viruses, and how the body protects itself against it. We decided that in the next workshops this series of lessons will be continued.
Christel Hermann