Metal Insets

Direct aim. To control a pencil: tracing an outline, then filling a shape with even, parallel strokes.

Indirect aims, the ones you will not see at once

Ten metal frames, each with a blue inset that lifts out by a small knob. Montessori Outlet, Nienhuis and The Montessori Room all list pink frames and blue shapes; Alison's lists each inset at 5.5 inches square.

Montessori's 1914 set looks much the same: ten pink metal frames with blue figures, set out on two sloping boards of five, with a box of ten colored pencils. Her 1912 set had brown frames with dark blue centers, on two small sloping tables.

Most albums add a small tray, paper cut to the size of the frame, and a holder for three pencils. That's later practice, and it keeps the frame square on the paper.

A table and chair, with the stand where the child can see all ten shapes at once.

1. 1Invite the child to the stand. Choose the square or the circle, and carry frame and inset to the table on a tray with paper and pencils.Say "I'll show you the metal insets." Then carry them in silence.
2. 2Lay the frame on the paper. Hold it down with a flat hand and trace the inside edge with a colored pencil, slowly, all the way round.Silent Firm hand on the frame, light pencil, slow.
3. 3Lift the frame. Lay the blue inset on the drawn shape and trace around it in a second color.Silent Pick a new color for the second outline.
4. 4Lift the inset away. The figure now has two outlines in two colors.Silent Lift the inset slowly so the child sees both lines.
5. 5Fill the figure with strokes from one line to the other, each stroke staying inside the outline.Silent Slow, even strokes from line to line.
6. 6Invite the child to make one, then return the frame and inset to the stand.Say "Would you like to make one?"

Lifting the frame and finding a shape drawn on the paper.

Two outlines in two colors, one inside the other.

The knob. Montessori saw children add a small orange circle in the middle of their drawings to stand for it.

A drawer slowly filling with the child's own figures.

The frame and the outline. The metal edge guides the pencil, and when filling, any stroke that crosses the line shows. Montessori read a child's pencil control from the strokes, which start short and confused and grow long and parallel, inside the line.

Montessori’s name for this check is the control of error.

• Combining two insets in one drawing, overlapping or one inside the other
• Using a frame and an inset of different shapes together
• Filling with strokes in a new direction, or with short strokes
• Coloring outline designs, as in the book of drawings Montessori prepared
• Binding the child's best figures into a small booklet

Variations

This work needs only the material, so it has no printable of its own. The shelf plan below places it among the other works for the same age.

Free to print for your family, no email needed. Print at 100%, not “fit to page”, so the drawings keep their scale. Every printable on the site is listed on the printables page.

Ready for the first presentation

Ready for the next lesson

Check the frames and insets for sharp corners or burrs, especially on budget sets.

Draw sitting down, and carry pencils point down.

We have not bought the paid homeschool curricula, so they are not listed here.

1. Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook (1914)

   Writing, Fig. 28

   Two sloping wooden boards each hold five square metal frames colored pink, with a blue geometrical figure provided with a small button for a handle, used with a box of ten colored pencils.

   Writing

   The child lays the iron frame on the paper, holds it down firmly and follows the interior outline with a colored pencil, then places the blue figure on the outline and draws round it in another color.

   Holding a pencil like a pen, the child fills the figure with up and down strokes, at first clumsy and outside the outlines, later finer, parallel and within them.

   When the ten metal insets are arranged in a row before the child, rather than handed out, he wants to draw them all, and the number of exercises increases.

2. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (1912)

   Chapter XVII, Description of the Method and Didactic Material Used

   The top of each little sloping table holds square frames painted brown with centres of the same dark blue as the metal insets.

   Filling in one figure makes the child repeat the movement needed to fill ten copybook pages with vertical strokes, without weariness.

   Many children make a little orange circle in the centre of the figure to represent the brass button by which the metal piece is held.

   The strokes grow longer and more nearly parallel until the figures are filled with regular up and down strokes, which shows the child's maturity in holding the pencil.

   Chapter XX, Sequence of Exercises

   The child passes to the plane geometric insets in metal, follows the contours with a pencil and fills in the figures, and contemporaneously learns some sandpaper letters.

   Chapter XV, Intellectual Education

   Lessons in the names of forms begin with two strongly contrasted forms, the square and the circle, and only the most familiar names are taught.

Lesson text and the scope and sequence are CC BY 4.0: reuse them with credit to Owen Wren, Homeschool Montessori, and a link. Photos and illustrations are all rights reserved. The plates from Montessori's 1912 and 1914 books are public domain and not ours. Terms.