Fabrics

 'Fabrics' is one of the materials offered to help children refine their tactile senses.

A fabrics box calls for six to eight pairs of fabrics cut into identical squares contrasting/similar in texture and colour. I always used to wonder how this came up because out of all other manufactured materials in a CASA, this is one of the handmade materials and that means it is set by the guide in the classroom - the personality of the guide gets reflected especially in handmade materials.....

    

It also meant I needed to understand where the references came historically from......were there any notes that people referred to?

And then I read about them under a title called ' Game of the blind' (Book: The Montessori method)

A pretty little chest composed of drawers within within which are arranged rectangular pieces of stuff in great variety. There are velvet, satin, silk, cotton,linen etc. We have the child touch each of these pieces, teaching the appropriate nomenclature and adding something regarding the quality, as coarse, fine, soft. Then, we call the child and set him at one of the tables where he can be seen by his companions, blindfold him, and offer him the stuffs one by one. He touches them, smooths them, crushes them between his fingers and decides, "It is velvet- It is fine linen, it is rough cloth? etc. This exercise provokes general interest....

Now, this makes sense for a guide to think about when we have to set up, isn't it?