Montessori School Fullerton, Orange County, CA 92833

The young child meets the world around him/her through the constant use of all his/her five senses. The Sensorial Materials allows the child to use his/her five senses to explore new information in a way that makes it easy and natural for him/her to learn. All the impressions taken in by the child from birth to age three will be used from age 3 to 6 to create and construct his/her personality. The phenomena of organizing all the wealth of impressions gathered will happen anyway; the guide in the primary class assists this process with the aid of the Montessori Sensorial Materials.

Each of the Sensorial Materials isolates one of the senses into a category such as color, weight, size, shape, texture, sound, smell, etc. The materials emphasize a particular quality while eliminating or minimizing the others. This allows the young child to concentrate on one sense at a time without having so much sensory input that he cannot respond to any of it. All the materials are designed to help the child’s mind to focus on one particular quality. For example when the child is being taught colors, only the color being taught is highlighted. When he is being taught length, the material varies in length only. The color, breadth, and width remain the same. Through the exercises offered in this area the child is given an opportunity to create order out of the jumbled mass of information taken in indiscriminately. He is able to correctly classify and name things. The child is given an ability to recall information learned, and also refine all his sensory perceptions. In reality the sensorial exercises give the child keys for an exploration of his world.  All the sensorial materials offer abstract concepts made real and concrete. The sensorial impressions are not enough by themselves. When the child has experience with the material, he is given a name to attach to it, and his vocabulary grows.