The Goal of Sensorial Education
Sensorial education introduces the child to language far beyond their years, creating a wonderment for inquisition to formulate and cognitive growth the develop. Its fundamental purpose is to refine the senses through observation, activating fine motor skills, creating a sense of self – perception within the child, independence and a true sense of order.
Visual – Using the sense of sight, the child develops visual discrimination through Sensorial works. For example, the Pink Tower is relatively a set of building blocks, but while the child is building, he begins to visually discriminate the dimensions of one block compared to the others.
The tower standing will range from 1cm cubed being the smallest, to 10cm cubed being the largest. Children can associate this connection with many things in their knowledge banks, comparing big to small, or shortest to tallest. All visual activities are presented to help the child differentiate between objects whether it be size, color, or shape.
Auditory– The auditory sense allows the children to recognize sound and its variations in levels.
The sensorial works such as the sound cylinders, teaches the matching and grading of sound.
The most unique Sensorial work for developing the auditory sense is the Montessori bells. The
children experience playing the music notes in the C major scale by matching sounds and tones.
Tactile – The Sensorial category that embodies the development of the sense of touch is tactile.
Works such as the thermic bottles, rough and smooth boards, and blindfolded fabric square matching, encourages children to touch the didactic material. The activities, help them distinguish, sort, grade objects that are rough, smooth, warm, heavy, light, soft, and so on.
Gustatory– Gustatory refers to the sense of taste and children really enjoy these sensorial themed works. The Tasting Bottles are one of several works focus on in this area, to guide the children in comparing and distinguishing between salty, sweet, and bitter liquids they may drink. We also
compare the difference in flavors of foods.
Olfactory – The olfactory sense, or sense of smell, is delightful to explore with children. In the Sensorial area, you’ll find Smelling Cylinders match orders. Smells are associated with memory and children are always willing to comment on how their sense of smell identifies a specific
order in any environment.
