The sensorial area is designed to provide opportunity for the child to gain physical knowledge of his world. This knowledge is not gained by direct teaching, but by physical interaction with a rich environment. A real Montessori child will say, "I learned it myself," when asked where he learned something.

The Montessori materials are developmental materials, not teaching materials. They provide the child with the opportunity to develop skills. The only direct teaching that occurs in this area is the introduction of vocabulary. The sensorial area reaches out to all senses: visual, auditory, touch, taste, and olfactory.

The materials are open ended -- the child should be allowed to freely discover and explore with the materials. There are many applications for the materials and it is when a child is exploring and finding the many applications that he is learning.

Language will enrich the child's experiences with the materials, much as the materials will enrich the child's experiences with the language. The word "long," for example, takes on a real meaning for the child who has carried the longest (one meter long) red rod to a rug, unable to even stretch his arms to grasp both ends. In this way, without ever hearing the word "meter," the child gains a sense or concept for the length of a meter.

The sensorial area is a preparation for math. The basic exercises for dimension (cylinder blocks, color cylinders, pink tower, brown stair, and red rods) all have ten pieces, the basic unit of the decimal system. The pink tower, brown stair, and red rods are built to basic metric dimensions, preparing the child indirectly for an understanding of the metric system. The red rods are the same size as the red and blue rods that the child will encounter in the math area. The binomial cube, the trinomial cube, the power of the two cube, and the square of the Pythagoras all give the child a sensorial basis for math concepts he will learn years later.

The sensorial area is also a preparation for writing, as the child gains fine motor control in tracing the figures in thegeometric cabinet and in the tactile exercises. The child will empower the tactile senses in his fingertips and learn many of the motions (.e.g., wrist movement) he will later use in writing.

Finally, the sensorial area, as all areas in the classroom has an emphasis on the child manipulation and handling the materials. As Montessori said in The Absorbent Mind, ".... Through manual activity, the child reaches a higher level of intelligence; whoever has worked with his own hands has a strong character. my experience has shown that if, for some peculiarities in the environment, the child cannot make use of his hands, his character remains at a very low level, he remains incapable of obedience or initiative, and becomes lazy and sad, while the child who has been able to work with his hands shows a marked development and force of character."

Other Sensorial Links

• Motor development - Scroll down for taste, smell, sound, etc.
• The Montessori Mother
• San Francisco Montessori School and the sensorial