Sensorial Learning - Primary Curriculum

In the Montessori classroom, sensorial materials play a key role. They are designed to sharpen the senses of the young child. Further, they enable the child to understand the many impressions received though the senses.

Examples of Sensorial Materials

Each of the sensorial materials isolates one defining quality, such as:

• colour
• weight
• shape
• texture
• size
• sound
• smell.

Sound boxes, for example, are all the same size, shape, colour and texture; they differ only in the sounds which are made when a child shakes them. Other sensorial materials include:

• geometric solids
• fabrics
• square pythagoras
• colour tablets
• temperature bottles
• cylinder blocks.

Natural Learning

The Montessori sensorial materials help the child to distinguish, categorize, and relate new information to what he already knows. The child finds a sense of order in these materials.

More imporantly, he discovers the joy of learning that his environment has order. His intellect is trained to make order out of a multitude of experiences--this is the natural learning process.