The Montessori Elementary Material. Maria Montessori Montessori
Occasionally class exercises are used in our schools for the four forms of the Italian noun, masculine and feminine, singular and plural. They take the form almost of a game, which the children find amusing. A child for instance distributes around the class all the plural nouns. Then he reads aloud a noun in the singular. The child who holds the corresponding plural answers immediately. The same thing is next done for masculine and feminine, and, finally, for all four forms at once.
When these exercises have become familiar to the child, others somewhat more difficult may be presented. These new ones comprise: nouns which change form completely as they change gender and of which, so far, only the most familiar examples (babbo, "father," mamma, "mother," etc.) have been given (Series A); nouns in which the form is the same in the singular of both genders (Series B); those in which both genders have a common form in the singular and a common form in the plural (Series C); nouns which have only one form for both singular and plural (Series D); nouns where the same form appears