The DIAMOND KITE Project

The Active Education Approach for

Full Inclusion in the Social-Educational Field

EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES

The DIAMOND KITE Project FILES

Reference: I CAN for ARABIC & MATH

The SECRET BOX

“I CAN recognize that shape”

It is a guessing game which involves touching and requires the ability to form mental
images. It aims to abstraction and symbolization.

Children are trained to:

 recognize shapes
 discriminate between shapes (for example between real letters of the alphabet and
not-letters, only similar)
 discriminate the relative position of shapes (for example: a triangle on the right is
not the same as a triangle on the left, or with a different orientation of its vertex)
 compare a mental image of a 3D shape with the abstraction of a 2D picture
 select the most appropriate 2D image among similar symbols

Basic Secret Box

It is a box made out of a normal strong

card box, with three openings on the sides.

The child sits at the closed side of the

box and puts her/his hands in the two smaller
openings (the child cannot see her/his hands -
the focus is on touch).

The teacher/educator (or even a school mate) introduces a card with a relief (a sort of 3D
card - the relief can be done with strings, cardboard, sponge, sandpaper, tinfoil, sponge, rubber,
wood... and it can reproduce a traditional form like a triangle, a circle, a letter of the alphabet or a
casual motif...) so that the child can touch it and start forming a mental image of what s/he can
touch, but cannot see.

On the top of the box the teacher places cards with drawings (2D) which could be like the
3D card in the box. The child looks at these similar cards and chooses the one s/he thinks
reproduces in 2 dimensions what s/he touching.

With younger children or disabled ones, not a card but a real, well known object could be
introduced in the box, for example an apple, and then only two photos (easier to recognize than
pictures, which are an abstraction in themselves) shown to the child, thus reducing the
alternatives and the difficulty.

1 Lucia Biondelli and Daniele Bianchi for EducAid NGO, Italy – The DIAMOND KITE Project FILES (2015)
The Active Education Approach for Full Inclusion in the Social-Educational Field
I CAN - Secret Box for MATH

Besides the skills activated for the basic form, when using the Secret Box for Math, children
are trained also to:
 count quantities
 refer quantities to their digits or numeric symbols (symbolization)
 refer quantities to the digits of two different systems: the numerals used in English
(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) or those used in Arabic countries (the Arabic–Indic numerals or
Eastern Arabic numerals ٠‎١‎٢‎٣‎٤‎٥‎٦‎٧‎٨‎٩‎)
 compare quantities
 calculate simple operations

The teacher/educator prepares:

o 3D cards with 3D elements to be counted by touching
o 2D cards either with pictures of the elements (same as the 3D card inside) or with
the digit to be seen and compared with the mental image

4 ٤
o 2D cards similar but not the same as the 3D cards

Of course cards can be invented and made by the children themselves for their school
mates, adding fun and interest to the activity.

2 Lucia Biondelli and Daniele Bianchi for EducAid NGO, Italy – The DIAMOND KITE Project FILES (2015)
The Active Education Approach for Full Inclusion in the Social-Educational Field