Montessori's Design Experiments
As part of her medical studies, Montessori was trained in anthropology, most notably by Guiseppe Sergi, one of the world's leading anthropologists in the years when Montessori was his student. He believed in "turning anthropology from the classification of abnormalities to the discovery of ways of preventing abnormality, through the establishment of a scientific pedagogy based on the anthropological study of children." (Kramer, 1988, p. 71)
Montessori, in turn, was a pioneer in the use of anthropology to develop educational artifacts. These artifacts included guidelines for teacher and student practices as well as physical layouts of classrooms and educational materials.
I'm collecting examples in this section to give some idea of her approach.
Sewing
From The Montessori Method (Montessori, 1964, pp. 260-261):
While teaching deficient children I happened to observe the following
fact: An idiot girl of eleven years, who was possessed of normal
strength and motor power in her hands, could not learn to sew, or even to
take the first step, darning, which consists in passing the needle first
over, then under the woof, now taking up, now leaving, a number of threads.
I set the child to weaving with the Froebel mats, in which a strip of
paper is threaded transversely in and out among vertical strips of paper
held fixed at top and bottom. I thus came to think of the analogy
between the two exercises, and became much interested in my observation of
the girl. When she had become skilled in the Froebel weaving, I led
her back again the sewing, and saw with pleasure that she was now able to
follow the darning. From that time on, our sewing classes began with a
regular course in the Froebel weaving.
Montessori then generalized the results of her experiment into a design
pattern (Ibid, p. 261):
I saw that the necessary movements of the hand in sewing had been
prepared without having the child sew, and that we should really find the
way to teach the child how, before making him execute a
task. I saw especially that preparatory movements could be carried on,
and reduced to a mechanism, by means of repeated exercises not in the work
itself but in that which prepares for it. Pupils could then come to
the real work, able to perform it without ever having directly set their
hands to it before.
One of the places where she first applied this design pattern was the
teaching of writing. She had a wooden alphabet manufactured.
Children with experience tracing the edges of wooden geometric shapes where
given wooden letters to trace. After experience with the wooden letters,
they were ready to learn how to write.
Gymnastics
From The Montessori Method (Montessori, 1964, pp. 140-141):
Now we, with the gymnastics, can, and, indeed, should, help the child in his development by making our exercises correspond to the movement which he needs to make, and in this way save his limbs from fatigue.
One very simple means for helping the child in his activity was suggested to me by my observation of the children themselves. The teacher was having the children march, leading them about the courtyard between the walls of the house and the central garden. This garden was protected by a little fence made of strong wires which were stretched in parallel lines, and were supported at intervals by wooden palings driven into the ground. Along the fence, ran a little ledge on which the children were in the habit of sitting down when they were tired of marching. In addition to this, I always brought out little chairs, which I placed against the wall. Every now and then, the little ones of two and one half and three years would drop out from the marching line, evidently being tired; but instead of sitting down on the ground or on the chairs, they would run to the little fence and catching hold of the upper line of wire they would walk along sideways, resting their feet on the wire which was nearest the ground. That this gave them a great deal of pleasure, was evident from the way in which they laughed as, with bright eyes, they watched their larger companions who were marching about. The truth was that these little ones had solved one of my problems in a very practical way. They moved themselves along on the wires, pulling their bodies sideways. In the this way, they moved their limbs without throwing upon them the weight of the body. Such an apparatus placed in the gymnasium for little children, will enable them to fulfill the need which they feel of throwing themselves on the floor and kicking their feet in the air; for the movements they make on the little fence correspond even more correctly the same physical needs. Therefore, I advise the manufacture of this little fence for use in children's playrooms. It can be constructed of parallel bars supported by upright poles firmly fixed to the heavy base. The children, while playing upon this little fence, will be able to look out and see with great pleasure what the other children are doing in the room.
Cylinders
From the Advanced Montessori Method, Volume 1 (Montessori, 1991, pp. 53-54):
My experimental work with little children from three to six years old has been, in fact, a practical contribution to research which has for its aim the discovery of the treatment required by the soul of the child, a treatment analogous to that which hygiene prescribes for its body.
I think, therefore, that it is essential to record the fundamental fact which led me to define my method.
I was making my first essays in applying the principles and part of the material I had used for many years previously in the education of deficient children, to the normal children of the San Lorenzo quarter in Rome, when I happened to notice a little girl of about three years old deeply absorbed in a set of solid insets, removing the wooden cylinders from their respective holes and replacing them. The expression on the child's face was one of such concentrated attention that it seemed to me an extraordinary manifestation; up to this time none of the children had ever shown such fixity of interest in an object; and my belief in the characteristic instability of attention in young children, who flit incessantly from one thing to another, made me peculiarly alive to the phenomenon.
I watched the child intently without disturbing her at first, and began to count how many times she repeated the exercise; then, seeing that she was continuing for a long time, I picked up the little arm-chair in which she was seated, and placed chair and child upon the table; the little creature hastily caught up her case of insets, laid it across the arms of her chair, and gathering the cylinders into her lap, set to work again. Then I called upon all the children to sing; they sang, but the little girl continued undisturbed, repeating her exercise even after the short song had come to an end. I counted forty-four repetitions when at last she ceased, it was quite independently of any surrounding stimuli which might have distracter her, and she looked round with a satisfied air, almost as if awaking from a refreshing nap.