We dabbled with the sand tray last week. Bubs really took to it well and has chosen it from the shelf consistently everyday. Surprisingly he has only used it once for making pictures and there has been a minimal amount of sand on the floor. Now....let's cross our fingers that it stays that way because Nito sits ever so closely to Bubs' table and watches rather intensely. I occasionally hear "This is my work Nito NOOOOO!!" Then I wait for the loud crashing sound of sand and the tray hitting the ground. Yet to happen, but prepared nonetheless.
I started him on the sand tray to try to encourage his use of the good ole moveable alphabet. Geez, he just doesn't like that thing. (I guess you can't expect him to love every material.) It has seemed to work though. I thought maybe if he started writing out the letters then he would want to try to make words with the sounds.....well my thought was wrong. At least for now, he just wants to make the letters in the sand. I did just order him some language objects to create a phonetic box so I am hoping this will help. Stay tuned for that post.
In Montessori, the sand tray is used as a preparatory work for the child who has become interested in writing. Now, Bubs did great writing his numbers straight from a chalkboard to paper. However, he is struggling with the letters. We also start with cursive in Montessori. There is a great layout of the steps for the sand tray at Info Montessori. She breaks it down and shows the progression from the sand tray to the chalkboard. Then once the child is comfortable, he can move to writing on paper.
Yay, he made "cat". Now he didn't want to put all of the sounds together, but at least it's a start.
See the empty chair where Nito hovers?!? During the photo, of course, he was asking to see the picture.
Then he just started pulling random letters from the sandpaper letters. I was actually impressed at how well his letters came out. It is quite different in sand versus on paper with a pencil.
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