In conventional school, the study of geometry is taught only with pencil and paper. It thus becomes sadly disconnected from real objects. What a shame when circles, triangles and all manners of quadrilaterals surround us everywhere as we go about our lives.
A key Montessori insight is that we can serve the development of the mathematical mind by giving sensorial experiences first, and only later moving to abstract symbols on paper. A child who is allowed to explore with real mathematical objects at an early age stands a good chance of becoming a real math lover later in life.
Math and geometry are presented and treated in the same way as art, building with blocks, music, gardening, and all other subjects. Thus, in this spirit of joyful exploration, we marvel at the wonder of the 5 year old child who observes a rectangle in his classroom and then notices that its shadow becomes a parallelogram. Or the 3 year old who realises he can make triangles with his roti dough or scissors. Or indeed the 7 year old who tries his hardest to construct a circle using a combination of small sticks (straight lines), not yet understanding that it will take an infinite number of them!
