{"id":938,"date":"2018-01-16T20:34:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T03:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yycmontessori.ca\/?p=938"},"modified":"2018-01-16T20:34:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T03:34:36","slug":"the-hand-chart-a-montessori-history-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yycmontessori.ca\/the-hand-chart-a-montessori-history-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hand Chart: A Montessori History Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Hand Chart, a key lesson in the Montessori Elementary history curriculum, gives children a first look at the Story of Humans in a condensed form. This lesson helps children appreciate how early humans used their hands to survive, to invent tools, and to make important discoveries. Most of all, it highlights the development of writing.<\/p>\n

The Hand Chart is actually a ten-foot-long strip of black cloth that represents how long humans have been on Earth. In the center of the otherwise blank cloth is a picture of a hand holding an early stone tool. There is a surprise at the very end: a half-inch wide red strip representing recorded history, from the first pictographs to today’s computerized documents.<\/p>\n

Children are amazed to see the relatively short time in which people have been writing, compared to how long humans have been on Earth. The lesson also introduces children to the concepts of\u00a0history<\/i>\u00a0or written records, represented by the narrow red strip, and\u00a0prehistory<\/i>, the time before writing, represented by the longer black strip.<\/p>\n

With impressionistic lessons like this one, the details come later, as children are inspired to do research and discover answers to their own questions. A student might learn that humans have been on Earth for eight million years and then calculate that every foot on the Hand Chart represents 800,000 years! In my Montessori training, we were told that the red strip represents 5000 years of recorded history. Some scientists now believe that the earliest pictographs are 700,000 years old. Others believe the earliest pictographs are 70,000 years old. New discoveries are made all the time. Remember that the Hand Chart is meant to give children the\u00a0impression<\/i>\u00a0of how short a time humans have been writing, rather than a specific number of years.<\/p>\n

Cosmic Education and the Great Lessons<\/p>\n

In the Montessori Elementary classroom, the Universe and all its wonders are offered to children through the Great Lessons. These dramatic stories are about<\/p>\n