All of the children should be familiar with tag-based games. They have played different tag versions with their friends for many years. Some of them might be familiar with a version called blob tag. For those students who are not familiar with the game, it is easily explained. The tagged player joins the tagger, and together they can catch more people until everyone is part of the “blob.”

The First Great Lesson is typically the first big culture lesson in the school’s first or second week. The students perform demonstrations and experiments that go along with the First Great Lesson, which provides impressionistic content to help the students imagine the different components of the story. There is debate amongst Montessori teachers about when to introduce the experiments within the context of the story. Some teachers like to do the experiments first because this primes the student’s imagination and allows them to use their observations as a guidepost. Some teachers do the experiments while they are reciting the First Great Lesson. It can be complicated juggling storytelling with the experiment demonstrations simultaneously. However, by doing so, the experiments will clearly connect with the story. Some teachers wait until they recite the whole story and then have experiment stations for the students to rotate through later that day or on a different day. This allows the students more time to delve into the experiments because they usually have more time.

This game is meant to recreate the experiment demonstrating how smaller pieces combine to make more significant pieces (from particles to stars). This lesson is done with a bowl of water and either small pieces of paper or glitter. The paper or glitter is poured onto the water, which naturally spreads. However, with a little stir, the small, individual glitter pieces start to clump up together. The students will take the place of the glitter in this game. When students get tagged, they hold hands and become a group that tries to tag more students. By the end of the game, almost everyone is together in the “blob.” This means the particles have turned into a globule, eventually clumping up with other globules on their way to making a star.

Materials: 

·      An ample open space (such as a gym or field)

·      Cones if playing outside

Minimum Number of Students Needed: While you could play this game with five to six students, it is much more fun with an entire class (20+).

Age: Lower Elementary