The Baric Tablets 

 

Material

  • These are three sets of wooden tablets, uniform in size but different in weight and color. They should be very smooth and varnished so that every roughness is eliminated. There are three distinct weights–light, medium and heavy–and the tablets vary in their natural color according to the degree of heaviness.

Direct aim

Discrimination of difference in weight.

Control of error

Visual, the difference in color.

Age of interest

4 years.

Presentation

  1. The teacher takes the light and heavy sets and places a light tablet on one of the child’s hands and a heavy one on the other so that the child can feel the difference in weight. These tablets should rest on the base of the palm of his outstretched fingers.Then the child moves his hands gently up and down to get the sense of weight. The movement should come almost imperceptibly. 
  2. This exercise is presented first with the eyes open and later the child may be blindfolded.

Exercise

The child will mix and pair the tablets by weighing them in his hands.

    • 1st – light and heavy
    • 2nd – heavy and medium
    • 3rd – heavy, light and medium, mixed
    • 4th – give language: heavy, light, medium weight.