Children explore the world with all their senses – visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory and auditory. Dr Montessori created the sensorial material in order to respond to this specific developmental need as well as to support and heighten children’s sensorial perception.
When children work with these activities they acquire information about their world through their senses. They come to experience and better understand all the qualities that make up our world – qualities such as colour, size, shape, texture, sound, smell and taste. Each activity focuses the children’s attention on one specific quality. This is the uniqueness of Montessori sensorial education – children are far more capable of organizing and classifying the information they receive, precisely because they explore one quality at a time.
The sensorial material is beautiful and it attracts the attention and interest of children who happily explore the possibilities that it offers. The precise information that children acquire enables them to form abstractions and build their intellect. They begin to make sense of their reality and come to understand and appreciate the wonders of the world to which we belong.