Baric Tablets

Materials:

3 small wooden boxes (or a box with three compartments)
7-10 tablets of mahogany
7-10 tablets of birch
7-10 tablets of balsa
(the woods are of different colors by nature, and have different weights of about 35 grams)
A blindfold

Purposes: Refinement of the tactile sense for weight and pressure (baric)

Age: 3 ½ - 4 ½

Preparation: Pairing of the Touch Tablets

Presentation: Sorting

Introduction: Greatest Contrasts

Invite the child for a lesson on the Baric Tablets.
Show the child how to carry the box, return it to the shelf and have the child help carry the greatest contrast to the table, mahogany, and balsa. You will bring a blindfold and 2 tissues.
Have child move their chair slightly back.
Take two of each tablet and place in two piles so the child can experience the following combinations:
- Heavy and light
- Light and heavy
- Heavy and heavy
- Light and light
Show the child how to weigh the tablets by closing your eyes, picking them up lightly, and holding on the fingertips of your outstretched hands. Weigh them slightly up and down on the fingertips. Put them down.
Invite the child to hold their hands palms up with eyes closed. From just above their hands, drop a pair on their fingertips.
Ask the child if they feel the same or different.
Remove the tablets from their hands and repeat until the various combinations are introduced.

*If the child can distinguish the difference with the combinations, proceed with the sorting presentation.

Sorting

Move your stool to sit in front of the tablets.
Arrange the tablets in two random piles with an equal number of tablets in each pile.
Put on the blindfold, take a tablet from each pile, and use the tips of the fingers to weigh.
Set them down, cross arms, right over left, and pick up tablets again, feeling in the same fashion.
Indicate the heavy tablets will go on one side of the table and the light on the other.
Continue feeling the stack in the same manner until all tablets are sorted.
Remove the blindfold and visually check.
Mix the tablets again in two random piles. Invite the child to put on the blindfold and sort the tablets. Fade and observe. When the child is finished, encourage repetition.

Control of Error:

Language: Heavy, light, Comparatives: heavier than, lighter than & Superlatives: heaviest, lightest

Each following exercise requires an introduction to the new combinations of tablets.

Following Exercises:

Use the same technique to sort out medium (birch) and heavy (mahogany).
Use the same technique to sort out light (balsa) and medium (birch) tablets.
Mix the three different tablets into two random piles and sort them into 3 different piles.

Memory Games: None

Pedagogical Notes:

This is an exercise in sorting. In other Sensorial presentations, we show pairing. In pairing, the child is finding like qualities, in sorting the child is separating differences.

Thermic Tablets