It is traditionally taught that the human being experiences his world through five senses: visual/seeing, auditory/hearing, olfactory/smelling, tactile/touch, and gustatory/taste. Maria Montessori expanded these five senses to include chromatic/color, baric/weight, thermic/temperature, and stereognostic/tactile-muscular.
Purpose of Sensory Education
In Montessori training, it is taught that the direct aims of the Sensorial activities are to refine the child’s senses so that he can differentiate even the slightest differences in order to truly observe and appreciate the world around him. The indirect goals are the mastery of the manipulation of the apparatus and of the terminology involved. Each exercise specifically isolates one sense at a time, to maximize its refinement.
Visual Sense
The visual sense is interpreted by the eyes. It is what you can see. Exercises develop this sense by requiring the eye to perceive differences in size, form, and color. Size materials include the Pink Tower, Brown Prisms, Red Rods, Knobbed and Knobless Cylinders, which are graded by size. Materials teaching form include the Geometric Solids (three-dimensional) and the Geometric Cabinet (two-dimensional).
Chromatic Sense
Montessori isolates the chromatic sense with her color tablet activities. Children first distinguish between primary colors, then secondary, and finally the various gradations of each. These exercises allow the child to look at a tree and see the many variations of green found in the leaves or the blues and purples of the ocean. The child can truly perceive the beauty found on this earth.
The Stereognostic or Tactile-Muscular Sense
Montessori recognized that while the eye can perceive differences in size and form, the understanding is heightened when the hand is also engaged. She believed that the hand was the direct link to the brain. To understand what a curve really is, you have to feel it and experience it. Children are encouraged to look at objects while touching them. They are also encouraged to touch them with closed eyes or a blindfold in order to experience them much in the way a blind person would.
Tactile Sense
The tactile sense is interpreted through the skin. It is your perception of that which you touch. Montessori activities have the child start with touching different grades of sandpaper, then move on to different materials in the environment. Prior to handling the different materials, the fingertips are “sensitized” either by vigorously rubbing them on the carpet or dunking them in tepid water. The sensitization heightens the perception of differences between extra-fine and super-fine sandpaper, and between silk and linen.
Thermic Sense
The thermic sense takes the tactile sense a step further and teaches the child to distinguish temperature. He determines hot and cold by holding metal bottles in his hand or by touching different kinds of stones and other materials to his cheeks. Knowledge of the thermic sense protects the child from harm.
Baric Sense
The baric sense is feeling different weights. The child again uses the whole arm in conjunction with the hands and the tactile sense to determine light vs. heavy. This is done through weighted tablets in the classroom and can translate into other objects in the environment as the child becomes a sort of human balance or scale.
Auditory Sense
The auditory sense is interpreting the world through the ears. In order to understand sound, children must first be introduced to silence. Then they can be introduced to matching and grading sounds. Games can be played in which the child is blindfolded and has to identify a person’s voice, or from where in the room a sound is coming.
Olfactory Sense
The olfactory sense is interpreting the world through the nose by smelling. Children match different herbs or other smells in the smelling bottles. Eventually more abstract activities take place that match the scent to a picture.
Gustatory Sense
The gustatory sense is interpreting the world through the tongue by tasting. The child learns to distinguish between sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. Tasting activities can be done in a group, as an individual work, or through food preparation activities.
Montessori subdivided the five basic senses to provide an opportunity for more detailed refinement of them. Through the child’s work in the Sensorial area, he will then put them all together to interpret and appreciate his world much differently.
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