Montessori materials
HOW DOES THE SENSORIAL MATERIAL ASSIST THE CHILD IN HIS EXPLORATION OF THE WORLD?
Children begin to explore the environment from the first moment after birth, even if they appear helpless, motionless infants are exploring in their cribs. It is an invisible exploration of hearing, looking, etc.
The child is an active learner, he is attracted to things in the world, and learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so he passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious mind.
Montessori mentioned that the first of the child organs that begin functioning are his senses, and the age between three to five years old covers the period of rapid physical development. The child in this age develop his senses, his attention is further attracted to the environment under the form of passive curiosity. The development of the senses indeed precedes that of superior intellectual activity.
Nature has gives us five the senses: sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. By using these five senses, the child makes a mental order of his environment, and in order to develop his mind, a child must have objects in the environment which he can hear, see and manipulate through his hands.
Maria Montessori thought, “the tongue, which he uses for speaking, and more of his hands which he employs for work are more intimately connected with his intelligence than any other part of his body”. She referred to them as the “instruments of man’s intelligence”
So, the child’s goal of exploration is twofold:
• To finish his own body through the development of the brain.
• To adapt to the group in which he is born.
Children begin to explore the environment from the first moment after birth, even if they appear helpless, motionless infants are exploring in their cribs. It is an invisible exploration of hearing, looking, etc.
The child is an active learner, he is attracted to things in the world, and learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so he passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious mind.
Montessori mentioned that the first of the child organs that begin functioning are his senses, and the age between three to five years old covers the period of rapid physical development. The child in this age develop his senses, his attention is further attracted to the environment under the form of passive curiosity. The development of the senses indeed precedes that of superior intellectual activity.
Nature has gives us five the senses: sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. By using these five senses, the child makes a mental order of his environment, and in order to develop his mind, a child must have objects in the environment which he can hear, see and manipulate through his hands.
Maria Montessori thought, “the tongue, which he uses for speaking, and more of his hands which he employs for work are more intimately connected with his intelligence than any other part of his body”. She referred to them as the “instruments of man’s intelligence”
So, the child’s goal of exploration is twofold:
• To finish his own body through the development of the brain.
• To adapt to the group in which he is born.