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The Sensorial Materials
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The senses are gateways to the intelligence. There is nothing in the intelligence that did not pass first through the senses. - Aristotle The Purpose of the Sensorial Materials Dr. Maria Montessori refers to the Senses as a “power or a potential given to the child by nature” in order to enable their development. It is our responsibility to help the child develop that potential. We want to support, to develop the senses and we need to keep in mind that the child’s senses are active all the time! Understanding the importance of the sensorial exercises can help the child to develop outside of school as well. When the child first enters into the world, his first contact with its wonders is through the senses, which then educate the intellect. The senses teach the child about things he can touch (including the people in his environment) and relationships between them. People learn about the world around them through the use of all of their senses. A baby will look at a new object, put it in its mouth for size and taste, shake it, and feel the texture and weight. Slightly older children are still very interested in exploring the world through their senses. In order for the child to understand the environment better, sensorial information must be provided. A child that is deprived of sensation at critical points of development may be unable to speak, distinguish sounds or form relationships between objects. But that is not to say that a child will be better for more and more indiscriminate sensations – better that he experience within a context that helps him bring order to the information provided by the senses. The Sensorial Exercises are designed to help them sharpen their senses and understand the many impressions they receive through their senses. The child goes through a series of discoveries; everything is new and every new discovery should provide the sense of satisfaction. It is not only the development of the senses which occurs during this process of discovery, more significantly the development of the whole personality which is the mind, body and spirit of the child. The sensorial exercises develop the character, ensuring that everything else will follow naturally, including intellectual and spatial (orientation in space) skills as well as understanding of context. This development helps the child to be a member of his time, place and culture. We do not always know what makes an impression on the child; the child absorbs information from the world around, which could be selected or accidental impressions – and which are often overlooked by the adult. The child takes shape from the bombardment of impressions, taking in a considerable amount of information both consciously and unconsciously. The purpose of the sensorial materials: 1) Learn classification and organization Children learn to classify and to organize their environment. Classification and organization give clarity to the mind and the consciousness. 2) Strengthen the powers of discrimination Strengthening the powers of discrimination brings refinement to the senses. The sensorial materials isolate specific senses, focusing on one sense at a time. It allows the child to discriminate, to see the differences and appreciate the distinctions. 3) Establish greater mental order The way we present things leads to the development of more neurological pathways as the child matures. Learning in context allows the child to understand more, and remember more. The Sensorial Materials The Sensorial Materials in the classroom help the child to become aware of details by offering her, at first, strongly contrasted sensations, such as red and blue, and then variously graded sensations, such as the many different shades of blue. The material enables the child to know what is red, what is blue and then to understand the abstraction of blueness and finally the abstraction of color itself. In a bilingual classroom, the element of language explored through these materials enable the child to build their vocabularies and to be able to describe the world around them in English and Chinese. Each of the Sensorial Materials isolates one defining quality such as color, weight, shape, texture, size, sound, smell, etc. The equipment emphasizes this one particular quality by eliminating or minimizing other differences. This is called “isolation of difficulty,” and is a central principal in the Montessori environment. This enables the child to easily explore one sensation variable at a time. This leads to greater observation skills, and the ability to discriminate between sensations, to categorize, to relate new information to what the child already knows and to appreciate a greater variety of sensations. The process of educating the senses is the beginning of conscious knowledge. It is brought about by the intelligence working in a concentrated way on the impressions given by the senses. We have a number of descriptions of the actual materials your child is working with. Click through to learn more: £ The Broad Stairs Or Brown Stairs£ The Long Rods£ The Colour Boxes 1, 2 &3
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