December 12th, 2007
The Sensorial area of the Montessori classroom is easily recognizable by the beautiful materials on the shelves. Most schools will invest in at least some of these: the blue geometric solids and the geometric cabinet, the pink tower, brown stair, red rods and knobbed cylinders. You’ll also see 4 square boxes with primary colored tops (knobless cylinder boxes), some plain wooden rectangular boxes which hold many-colored tablets, other wooden boxes with various triangular forms inside, sound cylinders, baric tablets…the list goes on and on. In addition to the materials designed by Maria Montessori, anything that can be used to a) define and b) refine the child’s senses is a valid sensorial material. Montessorians believe that it is through the education and refinement of the senses that a child will come to truly comprehend her world. Before the age of 2 ½, the absorbent mind of the child has been taking in all manner of information, soaking up impressions and data about her environment in an all-encompassing and undiscriminating way. Beginning at about the age of 3 her task is to catalogue and organize the various sensory impressions contained in her environment, and then to develop the ability to judge and compare the various qualities of shapes, sounds, tastes, scents and movements she encounters everyday. We hear more and more about children diagnosed with “deficits”. There’s Nature Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, Sensory Integration Disorder and more. The Montessori sensorial curriculum can be seen as at least a partial remedy for these deficits. By introducing various materials into the environment and isolating their sensory qualities, then allowing our children to simply experience them, we can battle these “deficits”. Begin with a walk outdoors to find variously scented flowers. Continue indoors, allowing the child to concentrate as long as he’d like while arranging the flowers in a line on a small rug. When his attention wanders, encourage him to distinguish between their scents – maybe introducing a blindfold to up the ante a bit. Present a beautiful vase and allow him to arrange the flowers again and again until he’s pleased with his bouquet, then celebrate their beauty by placing them in the center of the table while you eat lunch together (savoring every bite!). It’s worth taking the time and creating space in our classrooms and our lives to share simple sensory input with our children and to offer them opportunities to refine their perceptions, because training the senses this way leads to an enlargement of our field of perception in a way that computers and television screens cannot – thus creating an excellent foundation for intellectual growth. When you enter the sensorial area of the Montessori classroom, notice the beauty and simplicity of the materials. The Pink Tower stands on the floor by the shelf. How amazing to observe as a young girl walks over to this simple material and carefully, one piece at a time, moves all ten cubes to a rug on the floor, then settles down to intently stack them. Another child stands by the bell table and softly taps on two bells, using his voice to quietly reproduce and match their pitch to the two “control” bells next to them. Another is seated at a small table, matching knobbed cylinders to printed cards while at yet another table the teacher is seated with a child, naming two colors in the simplest of fashions. The quiet focus and intent of these small children strike the observer as they explore and catalogue their world, building their knowledge of it by the use of these marvelous materials.
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