The Montessori teaching method, which has become very popular with parents who are home schooling, is a child-centered educational method based on the work of the Italian educator Maria Montessori.

Montessori believed in a hands-on approach to learning. She encouraged children to develop their observation skills by doing many types of activities. These activities include use of the five senses, kinetic movement, spatial refinement, small and gross motor skill coordination, and concrete knowledge that leads to later abstraction.

There are many toys and educational items that assist the Montessori method. Mathematics is one of the key area’s of learning that can be helped with this method and there are products that can help children go from a concrete understanding of mathematics to an abstract understanding of mathematics via mathematical concepts. The fraction board is a great example clearly allowing children to learn the concept of 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4’s.

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