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| Children gain a concrete understanding about whole to part using matryoshka dolls. |
What is it about stacking and nesting materials that seem to draw children to them? For the very young, stacking materials offer the joy of building a tower over and then knocking it down. Over and over again they learn about cause and effect, as well as the fundamental laws of physics — what goes up, must come down! Nesting materials (graduated bowls, cups, boxes, etc.) teach spatial relationships, as well as the language of comparative adjectives (big, bigger, biggest; small, smaller, smallest) and prepositions (in, out, over, under, etc.). In addition, stacking and nesting materials help develop hand-eye coordination and the all important pincer grasp that is so necessary for writing. These materials also give children the opportunity to concretely experience the concept of a whole object and understanding the parts that are nestled within.
Not just limited to the preschool child, stacking and nesting materials help the elementary child classify and order abstract concepts by providing concrete, visual representations that they can understand easily. In a previous blog, we discussed how Russian matryoshka dolls can help upper elementary students learn about advanced biological classification. Stacking boxes can also be used at the lower elementary level to learn about the child’s place in the world.
