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Authors Remarks: When I set out to search for a teaching approach that was child appropriate and applicable for countries in Sub Sahara Africa, I had to take into account that young children like everywhere have a short attention span for lecturing. They are caught in their natural self-centeredness, and need to do things for themselves. They are still in the process of filling words with meaning, and of building the mental images that helps them to understand what teachers are trying to tell them.So, it had to be an individualized hands on-method for learning. The Montessori Method, provided an approved way as a starting point. But how could we manage to get the necessary materials for big groups of young children, on a very small budget. The only way out was to make similar materials to what Maria Montessori had been developing, taking her principles, and make them ourselves during the teachers training courses, which is even in the Montessori tradition. The benefit was that when teachers make their own materials, they understand them far better, and are much more vigilant that materials will not be misused and destroyed. The materials had to be of simple items that can be found easily in the African environment, and that are not expensive and have so little ‘valuable’, that they don’t remain as a piece of decoration protected in the principal’s office.Making materials is very time consuming, and I found it was not so easy to get pictures suitable for the experience of African children, in addition many of the trainees had little computer or drawing skill , so we provided a pattern book for easy reproduction of images.Check out the PDF file of our material book ...47 pages of learning materials made from locally available items, and with ideas of how to get started with a multi-sensorial classroom.
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