The Geometry Cabinet is a Montessori material containing trays of wooden shape insets. A knob on each inset allows it to be lifted from its frame. A separate presentation tray introduces a circle, a square, and a triangle.
Exploring the shapes
The presentation tray is typically the starting point. The activity described here involves lifting an inset by its knob, tracing the outline of the shape, and returning it to the matching opening.
Adding the cards
The cards extend the activity from wooden shapes to pictures of shapes. The guide selects a limited set of cards, and the child matches each pictured shape with its wooden inset from the cabinet.
The cabinet and cards offer different ways to work with the same shapes: handling an inset, tracing its outline, and comparing it with a flat representation on a card.
