The aim of Sensorial education is to develop a child’s intelligence by building on his experiences and thought processes, to connect the child and his environment through the isolation of his senses. Maria Montessori believed that we begin sensorial experiences from the womb and continue to develop them through childhood. The senses cannot be developed overnight, it is only though regular training of the senses that the child’s senses will start to develop and become refined. By educating the child’s senses, we help him to understand what is going on around him, what he can see, hear, touch etc.
Without our senses, we would not be able to do many of the everyday tasks we carryout. How we interpret experiences and interactions in our environment is called sensory processing. Sensory processing allows us to make neuronal pathways in our brain when we discover something new through our senses. When a child is regularly stimulated through his senses, he is more likely to begin making new neuronal pathways and also strengthen old ones pathways.
Sensorial education allows the child to be able to classify the things in his environment, which in turn allows him to create his own experiences in his environment. When the child can classify the things in his environment, he has started to organise the knowledge that he already has and he will then be able to change his environment to suit his needs.
The Senses:
Maria Montessori believed that there is more than just the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, she believed in nine senses, visual, chromatic, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, auditory, baric, thermic and stereognostic.
Visual: Perceives shape, form, composition, size and pattern
Chromatic: Perceives colour
Tactile : Perceives texture
Olfactory: Perceives scents and odours
Gustatory: Perceives tastes
Auditory: Perceives loudness and pitch
Baric: Perceives weight
Thermic: Perceives temperature
Stereognostic: Perceives