As the name suggests, Montessori sensorial activities involve and develop children’s five senses.
Between the ages of two and six, children are particularly receptive to developing their sensory systems. By stimulating their senses, teachers can heighten their awareness of their surroundings.
Sensorial activities also help them refine their sensory perception and their ability to concentrate.
Understanding Sensorial Work
Sensorial work bolsters children’s ability to make classifications with respect to their environment. It aims to help them acquire clear, conscious information by interacting with materials in their surroundings that trigger their senses.
What Sensorial Activities Involve
Sensorial activities and exercises are designed to cater to qualities that are perceived by the senses. These include shape, size, texture, composition, temperature, weight, loudness, softness, etc.
Considering that this is a fairly wide range of qualities, sensorial exercises are typically divided into different groups: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, baric, stereognostic, gustatory, and thermic.
Visual sensorial exercises help children learn how to visually distinguish the differences between objects that are similar and objects that are different.
They also involve understanding in different dimensions. Common objects used in Montessori classrooms include the pink tower, red rods, cylinder blocks, knobless cylinders, color boxes, and more.
Auditory sensorial exercises help children differentiate between sounds. They help them get attuned to all the different sounds in their environment. Bells and sound cylinders are typically used for these exercises.
Tactile sensorial exercises help children learn through touching and feeling, particularly through their fingertips. It helps them focus and concentrate when their hands are involved in an activity. These exercises include touch tablets, thermic bottles, fabrics, and more.
Gustatory and olfactory sensorial exercises help develop a child’s taste and smell. They learn to distinguish one taste from another and one smell from another.
Baric sensorial exercises have children learning about weight and pressure. They interact with different objects, sometimes with a blindfold, to heighten their understanding.
Stereognostic sensorial exercises help children recognize objects through touch. They feel objects and are encouraged to determine what they are.
Thermic sensorial exercises help children refine and better understand their sense of temperature.
At Abacus Montessori Academy, we provide children aged one to six with high-quality, child-centric, and sensorial-inclusive education. Our preschool in Chalfont, PA.
If you’re located in Chalfont, Quakertown, Perkasie, New Britain, Warrington, Lansdale, or Doylestown, PA, take a tour of our facility today or contact us for more information.
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