The purpose of this action research is to describe the findings of a project on how the children learn the landmarks in Hong Kong through Montessori activities and materials. The three main experimental exercises included “Three-piece cards”, “Board game” and “Hong Kong card”. I would also like to thank Hong Kong Christian Service for the support during my master's degree and the arrangements surrounding my internship.
She used this opportunity to work for a project—“Landmarks in Hong Kong” to design and implement the Montessori materials for three to six-year-old children. She worked for the project on "Landmarks in Hong Kong" because the children's interests were discovered in the internal classroom. When the teacher demonstrated to them an extension of the China puzzle map, they asked, "Where is Hong Kong?".
They live in Hong Kong, so everyone needs to know more about where they live. In this project, the researcher designed Montessori activities for children to learn more about landmarks in Hong Kong and the regions they belong to. Kowloon Space Museum”, “Peak Tower on Hong Kong Island” and “Tai O Fishing Village on a Remote Island”.
This is the aim of this project "Sights in Hong Kong" - to increase children's interest in Hong Kong.
Benefits of Montessori Materials
When the children are familiar with those materials, the teacher can introduce the names to the children with three-period lessons. During the first period, the teacher may present two or three objects for the child to identify the objects by saying "This is ____." to associate sensory perception with their names. In the second period, the teacher can give some instructions to let the child practice more in recognizing the name of the object.
By using bridging, the teacher can start with the last item called in the first period. When the teacher is sure that the child recognizes them, she can move on to the third period. The teacher can test the child whether he can name objects or not by asking “What is this?” He can start again with the last named object in the second period.
Therefore, the materials should have 'isolation of difficulty', 'control of errors' and 'points of interest' to encourage children to work with them continuously (Montessori, 1995).
Spatial skills
Landmarks in Hong Kong
The Peak Tower: Located in Victoria Gap on Hong Kong Island, it stands at a height of 396 meters. Standing at 428 meters above sea level, Sky Terrace 428 offers. spectacular panoramic views of Hong Kong. https://www.thepeak.com.hk/en/the-peak-experience/t he-peak-tower-overview). Praying for luck at the Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree is one of Hong Kong's most charming and well-preserved traditions.
The central area of the island is the historical, political and economic center of Hong Kong. The northern shore of the island forms the southern shore of Victoria Harbour, which is largely responsible for the development of Hong Kong due to its deep waters favored by large merchant ships. There are many famous attractions on Hong Kong Island, such as "The Peak", Ocean Park, many historical sites and various large shopping malls.
Outer Islands: The outer islands refer to all the islands that make up the territory of Hong Kong, with the exception of Hong Kong Island. A project on "Landmarks in Hong Kong" was implemented to show whether children's awareness of this topic could be improved or not.
METHODS
- Participants
- Measures
- Procedures
- Data Analysis
- Limitations
And also, the regions they belong to, including "Hong Kong Island", "Kowloon", "New Territories" and. After the project, the researcher did the above process again to collect the post-test data. This project was carried out in the Cantonese language commonly used in Hong Kong and was carried out in five steps.
The first step: understanding children's interest; the second step: designing related Montessori materials and activities; the third step: conducting pre-tests, collecting data before implementing the project; the fourth step: implement the project; the fifth step: conducting a post-test to collect data after the project. After understanding the children's interests and abilities, the researcher had designed different Montessori materials and activities related to the HK landmarks depending on the children's skills and progress in the Montessori classroom. Activity 2 – Map of Hong Kong: A map of Hong Kong made from felt, where the child can match the landmarks with the corresponding regions;
The researcher demonstrated the materials and activities with children individually or in small groups. In the first week, three main exercises, "Three-part cards", "Board game" and "Hong Kong card" were introduced to the children. In the second and third week, the extension activities, "Lego building", "Colour" and "Whole-part figure ground (same scale)" were continuously introduced to them.
At the same time, the researcher made continuous observations every day and then adapted and improved the materials or activities appropriately depending on the situation. Finally, the posttest took place on April 7, 2021, parallel to the pretest individually. Since the same group of children was involved in the pre- and post-test, a T-test for correlated groups (Pair T-test) was used to see if there is a significant difference in means between two dependent groups (Jackson, 2009) .
Due to the COVID-19, the project was originally scheduled to be implemented a year ago. After observing the interest of the original children's group in the Montessori classroom in 2020, this topic: Places of Interest in Hong Kong was determined. Three of the children had already graduated and the other three children had entered the Montessori classroom for this project.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results
This is because there is a big difference between the results the children got before and after the HK Landmarks project was implemented. We can conclude that the implementation of the Hong Kong Landmarks project can improve children's awareness of Hong Kong landmarks. At the same time, according to the above learning outcomes, the children's results before and after the end are compared in Table 4 according to their age.
It shows that most of the children could not answer the questions before the implementation of the project. But the graph shows that the younger the children are, the lower the percentage of getting scores in the post-test. Moreover, the percentage of response to the second question is also lower than that of the first question.
83-100% 4-year-old children scored on the first question and 67-83% 4-year-old children scored on the second question. 67-100% 3-year-old children scored the first question, and only 0-67% 3-year-old children could score the second question.
Discussion
However, she also answered "No". The data in the study also showed that the scores of these two children were lower than the others and both received only four points. It goes to the fishing village of Tai O on the outlying island.” The data in the study showed that he received eight points. The above shows that it is very important to follow children's readiness and developmental interest.
After introducing the coloring materials, she noticed that some children could not complete the coloring work with wooden crayons, but they enjoyed the water work so much. After a few days, the teacher discovered that children remembered the names of the monuments but could not associate them with their region. The materials should have features of 'isolation of difficulty', 'control of errors' and 'point of interest' to encourage children to work with them continuously.
For example, a child squeezed out one of the landmarks in the felt card and said, "It's soft. I like it so much!" The point of interest for the Hong Kong map was the textile. This shows that didactic materials can attract children to work with those materials to learn.
Since the children in the Montessori classroom were of mixed ages, the developmental sequence is necessary and important. For example, on a map of Hong Kong, children initially place a landmark and region name marker upside down. Moreover, when the children worked with the "Lego building", they tried to build landmarks next to the base picture.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
Teachers need to understand their interests and abilities to see if they are ready for development or not. In the project process, the teacher used three-period lessons to enable the children to learn the names of landmarks. When the children had used the Montessori materials themselves, some children were even saying the names of the landmarks out loud to deepen their memory.
Therefore, regardless of whether children are in a Montessori classroom or not, it is recommended to apply the above techniques so that children can discover and learn at their own pace.
Three Main Exercises
Understand that written ideas can be read for meaning and that written words are an effective way to communicate meaning. After the 3-year-old finished the 3-part cards, she clapped her hands to herself. Players take turns rolling the dice and moving the checker by the number shown on the dice.
When the chess game switches to “Space Museum”, the player can say: “I went to the Space Museum.”. After the player moves the check, he can say, "Your turn." to the other player.
Three Extension Exercises
Extension Exercise 1: Lego Building
Extension Exercise 2: Coloring
After coloring the regions, the child stuck the landmarks on the corresponding region and wrote their names according to the three-part maps.
Extension Exercise 3: Whole-part Figure Ground (same scale)
Lay out the cut-out figures one by one and tell the child that something is missing.
