Today Cookie and I explored the decanomial square. We had been meaning to do it for a while now, but honestly we get sidetracked by our geography studies a lot (so much to learn!) plus math and language. So the more advanced sensorial works had taken a bit of a backseat.

For our decanomial square materials, I used a printable from Montessori Print Shop. I have one somewhere which I glued to cardboard, but I couldn’t find it at this time, so I reprinted it and laminated it. I think the cardboard would work a lot better because this was a bit slippery. If/when I find my cardboard copy, I think I will paint over it all using the paints I use for our DIY Math Beads, since they use the same color coding. Then the colors will be a bit brighter and more durable than the printed cards simply glued to cardboard.

To teach the decanomial square I followed the lesson outline as in our Keys of the World sensorial manual. We worked through the initial presentation and then the first few activities, up to building squares—something I wasn’t expecting to see or learn from this material. It was a fun twist on this material!

It took us quite a while to work through this material, though Cookie wanted to keep going. But little brothers had ran off outside by this point so we will finish this work another day. Cookie seemed to really enjoy it, so I am hoping she will explore it independently as well.