Sensorial
Sensorial activities stimulate the various senses – this could be through touch, differentiating scents or sounds. Sensory activities deal with broader Casa areas of Practical Life, Geography and Math. Exploring Land and Water forms by pouring blue water into a land form enables the child to see the similarities and differences between an island and lake. Using a reverse mould, the child understands how an island is a piece of land surrounded by water, whereas a lake is a body of water surrounded by land.
Children explore Binomial and Trinomial Cubes (where 2-3 sensory cubes and prisms are manipulated in a variety of ways) indirectly preparing the child to understand algebra abstractly.
A control of error is a quality built into the material that enables the child to self-correct any mistake made without the involvement of an adult. The controls of error found in the binomial and trinomial cubes are those of colour, shape and size.
A child learns to match the colours and in the process of doing so builds the cube. The expansion of the cube provides the child with an intuitive impression of the two algebraic equations (A+B) ³ and (A+B+C) ³.
While using the Progressive Exercise activity, the child isolates like shapes into separate bowls helping to further develop fine motor skills and the ‘stereognostic’ or overall sense. Rough and Smooth Boards and Tablets help develop the tactile sense through lightness of touch. Cylinder blocks help the child to discriminate dimension and weight differences while the Constructive Triangles activity (when joined together) forms various four sided figures. This activity indirectly prepares the child for geometry and the rules for finding areas.
Dr. Maria Montessori understood the importance of isolating one key quality at a time within the material. The child’s senses are better developed by focusing on one quality at a time. To isolate colour - colour tablets are used. These tablets are all the same in size and shape - the difference lies in the colour. The variables introduced, are the primary, secondary and tertiary colours, followed by colour gradients.
A child developing their sense of touch may handle and manipulate objects within a mystery bag, or use light touch to differentiate the different textures of the rough boards. Wearing a blindfold fortifies their experience, saving these impressions into the child’s touch or stereognostic sense.
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