Life in the Pink Tower: Sandpaper Letters and Zen

This is a well received lesson in our home.  I gleaned this from my time spent in the classroom as the sandpaper letters is always a favorite with the children.  It is easily the "work" I have the most experience with and am most comfortable guiding them through.  As always I take my classroom experience and tweak it to best fit our home.  Here you see Grace using the sandpaper letters which we have expanded to include a sand tray and the "Red Letter Book" on this particular day.  Sandpaper letters are generally introduced at about 3 years old, Grace is 5.5 and has been working with sp letters for several years.  This has been an extended process because Grace has an articulation disorder.  Learning letter sounds is challenging when you can not produce the sound.  This rolls over into a lot of frustration.  Montessorians often refer to "following the child".  This is exactly what I must work on with Grace.  Looking to her cues of readiness, not the standard.  I'll post more on the challenges of speech disorder another time.  FOr now back to the sandpaper letters.
In the classroom the sandpaper letters are in cursive.  Children learn to write in cursive rather than print.  I prefer printing, so our sp letters are lowercase print. ( In my mind italicized is ideal.)  Here is a great link http://www.ehow.com/how_4510034_use-montessori-sandpaper-letters.html to give an overview of how to work with the letters.

The lesson I am showing includes the sandpaper letters.  We begin by tracing them with our fingers and repeating the sounds.  The next step is writing them in the sand tray.  This sand tray is actually a small desktop zen garden, easily purchased and simply remove the rocks and rake.  It is wonderful because we use it as both.  Writing letters in the sand (dirt) with a finger is as basic and primitive as writing gets.  Perfect for practice of letter formation.  When she was done writing her letters we looked for objects in which we hear those particular letters.  Makes great use of those little toy figures she loves so much.  Littlest Pet Shop may not be the most Montessori of materials but they do the job perfectly.
I want to add for each step I give Grace space and leave her side.  She choses when she is ready to move on.  Forcing her to do 'just one more' or saying 'you can't be done already!' or even "are you still making that same letter?"  None of that is beneficial, quite the opposite.  Although if the child begins to misuse the materials (i.e. sprinkling sand on the floor) offer a reminder of the correct way to use it and if the child continues simply put the materials away.  You can let them know you will bring them out another time when they are ready to use them as shown.  I like to think of it as everything has a function and that is what we use them for--Chairs are for sitting, pencils are for writing, blocks are for building, etc... I don't believe this stifles creativity in the least bit.