When I was just starting school, the onsite afterschool program at my elementary school was a Montessori program. When we went there, we said were “going to Montessori”.
It was a great program and I have very fond memories of it. One of my earliest memories was sitting down at a table to trace shapes. Picked up a stencil and started coloring it in roughly, but the little girl who was next to me taught me how to trace the shape and then carefully color it in line by line. I’m still friends with that girl and she has two kids of her own.
She called the activity “doing insects”, which puzzled me as I knew insects to be the small creatures that walk around, but since everything was new and Montessori was a funny name anyway, I didn’t think much of it.
Occassionally as an adult I think back to that and know that is must not have been called ‘insects’, but wasn’t sure where it came from.
I have since had two children of my own who were in their own Montessori programs and worked on similar tools that I worked on when I was in Montessori.
Today, I was casually thinking of this event. My kids didn’t have the same tool in their programs, or I didn’t see it, so I never had a chance to inquire about it while they were at their Montessori schools. However, today as I was having lunch, this event came up in my memory for some reason and I decided to figure out what it was actually called.
I did a quick Google search and within 10 seconds, had found my answer:
INSETS! THEY ARE CALLED INSETS!
So, so close this entire time. I’m not sure if I misheard my friend, or my friend misheard our teacher the first time, but the mystery has now been solved nearly 40 years later.
And they are the same pink and navy color.