Module 3 “Exercises of Sensorial Development”

 Q1. Write a comprehensive note on the importance of sensorial exercises.

Ans: What input devices are for computers, senses are for our body or any living thing for that matter. Our sense organs act as a gateway to identify what goes around us and thus play a very important part in our understanding of our environment. Through our senses, we detect changes in our surrounding and responds accordingly. Children build a perception of their surroundings through these senses.

Therefore, exercises that involve their senses are important for the following reasons:

To sharpen senses:

In early childhood, from birth to the age of 6 -7 years, as the researchers have found that children have the natural urge to explore their surroundings using their various sense organs, if the right guidance and better opportunities for sensory interaction with the surrounding are given their senses can be sharpened. From various studies, it is evident that lack of early proper experience limits the future possibilities.

There are two types of sensorial exercises

1)      Active exercises: Activities in which children can participate and uses all or any of their senses e.g. touch, hold, lift or smell will lead to better judgment of materials around them. For E.g. playing cricket or any sport will help them understand the direction, speed, and weight of the ball.

2)      Passive exercises: Activities in which children can only watch and observe will lead to knowledge of materials around them. For E.g. watching cricket or any sport will help them understand rules to play the game but not develop their senses for judging speed, direction, or weight of the ball.

In Montessori teaching, emphasis is given to active learning where every child is given chance to participate and thus sharpen their senses.

 

Development of Brain:

In the primitive years, our nervous system is still building neural connections. The development of the nervous system is directly proportional to proper nutrition and adequate stimulation. Sensorial activities and exercises cater to the need for stimulation for children’s brains and respond accordingly.

The more they explore through these senses, the more stimulus they send to their developing brains and sharpen their mind to identify, qualify the properties of materials around them e.g. different shapes, smells, and textures. Whereas, inadequate stimulation lead to a much lesser development of neural connections.

Better Decision making:

Children are sensorial explorers and have a natural urge to interact with their surroundings. That’s why they touch everything or put everything in their mouth to identify the texture and taste of things. With time and guided sensorial exercises, they learn how to use their senses correctly.  A person with better abilities to use the senses will always be ahead of others as he can adjust to any kind of circumstances and can make better decisions and can learn fast.

Prepares the child for future learning:

Sensorial exercises prepare the child indirectly for future learning. For example, the child indirectly gets pencil training by holding the knobs of cylinder blocks which directly aims to teach a child about dimensions and sizes i.e. height and thickness. Similarly, the use of insets for design also indirectly prepares the child for writing. Also, the exercises to distinguish the directions help the child in the early years to be ready for reading, for example, children will be able to distinguish similar alphabets such as ‘b’ and ‘d’ or ‘p’ and ‘b’.

Enhance intelligence:

Every child has things and materials surrounding them which give them sensorial impressions.  Sense impressions are not enough by themselves; the mind needs education and training to be able to discriminate and appreciate. Montessori materials for sensorial exercises help the child to distinguish, categorize, and to relate new information to what he already knows. Dr. Montessori believed that this process is the beginning of conscious knowledge. It is brought about by the intelligence working in a concentrated way on the impressions given by the senses.

 

 As we all know that there are 5 types of senses.  Montessori sensorial exercises are categorized according to these senses which are as follows:

1. Visual Sense Development exercises:

These exercises help the child to develop their visionary sense. These exercises are important to learn dimensions, colors, shapes, and patterns.

2.  Auditory Senses:

These exercises require a sense of hearing and train the ear to discriminate different sounds.  Given the appropriate interaction with sounds, music and rhythm train the child musically as well.

1. Tactile Exercises:

These exercises help the child to explore through their sense of touch. These exercises are important to identify different textures, weight, temperature, and Stereognostic sense.

2. Olfactory Exercises:

In these exercises, children will learn to distinguish basic different smells.

3. Gustatory Exercises:

These exercises aim to give the foundation of children’s tasting expeditions. 

Q2.  What is stereognosis sense and how can we develop it?

Ans. Stereognostic Sense:

When we touch an object, its form, shape, and texture are stored in a special section of our memory called muscular memory. When the object is next touched, even without looking at it, our muscular memory is recalled and the object can still be identified just by touching it. This sixth sense which is basically a combination of touch and memory is called Stereognostic sense.

The use of this sense allows the child to have a mental picture of objects and identifies them by just touching them.

Development of Stereognostic Sense:

The development of stereognosis sense is important in the development of a child's sensorial development. To develop this sense, the child is given the object to feel in the hand as long as they want and as many times as they wish for and gets familiar with it.   Children should be taught by the directress to use their sense of touch to determine the texture, weight, size, and shape of the object. For example: first, the directress holds an object in her hand, feels it, and uses vocabulary like the object is small or big, heavy or lightweight, whether it is rough or smooth, and it's spherical or any other shape. The objects are then used with the blindfold and children are asked to identify the objects just by feeling them. In the beginning, a lesser number of objects may be given, and as the child shows progress more objects should be given.

Exercises to develop Stereognostic Sense:

In the Montessori way of education, the following exercises can be practiced to enrich young children’s stereognosis Sense.

1. Sorting Trays:

In this activity, different objects of the same sort can be used to sort. For example different beans, different buttons, or nuts. This exercise should be taught above 3 years old when a child stops putting things in his/her mouth. First, only two objects are given to the child to sort.

Materials Required:

●       A tray with a few bowls.

●       One bowl with assorted things and other bowls to sort objects in. (The number of bowls required depends on the number of objects in the first bowl)

●       Assorted objects can be done with many varieties of objects e.g. buttons, seeds,  nut screws, and, washers.

Steps to follow:

Following are the steps to do this activity:

●       A tray containing three bowls is given, one of the bowls has two types of beans mixed up.

●       Pick one of the beans, close your eyes and feel it. Vocabulary may be introduced to describe the beans. Hand it child to feel it as well

●       Place it in one of the empty bowls.

●       Pick up the second type of bean and repeat the above procedure.

●       Do it a few times for both beans and keep sorting the beans.

●       Later invite the child to repeat the work either by blindfolding them or just asking them to close their eyes. Don’t forget to take their consent.

This activity can be later advanced from sorting two things at a time to sorting 3-4 objects.

2. Mystery Bag:

As the children love surprises and are curious about hidden things. In this activity, an opaque bag full of assorted things is used to arouse curiosity and sharpen their stereognosis sense.

Material required:

An opaque colorful bag preferably with a drawstring to close.

Some of the things that can be used in mystery bag are small pencils, small toys, an eraser, key, etc

Steps to follow:

●       First, all the things are taken out of the bag and the child is allowed to touch and feel them by holding them in his hands.

●       The directress can describe the things to teach vocabulary associated with the items.

●       Once the child gets properly and thoroughly acquainted with the things, the objects can be placed back in the bag.

●        Later the teacher puts his/her hand inside the bag, describes what he/she feels by her hand using the same vocabulary, and identifies objects.

●       Children then should be called to identify objects the same way keeping the objects inside.

 

Q3. Write a note on three period-lesson and memory games.

Ans. Three Period Lesson:

 Three-period lessons are a very effective and efficient way of teaching new vocabulary to young children. The use of this technique is not limited to sensorial exercises but throughout all Montessori years.  In this way of teaching new words are introduced to students gradually in three periods (but not limited to three periods) until they show a full understanding of words and their usage in practical life.

Not only through this technique, we introduce new objects but we may teach them adjectives associated with the same type of objects. This makes language absorption easy for students. Therefore, based on what is being taught there are the following types of three period-lesson.

●       For naming

●       For  grading positives

●       For grading comparatives

●       For grading superlatives

The lesson is divided into the following three periods

Period 1 “Naming Period”: In this period, children are introduced to new words by showing them different objects. Teachers should repeat the name several times and slowly to make sure children have listened to it several times. If possible, the teacher can show similar things in the surrounding area e.g. The window shape is square and the door is a rectangle or the ball is a sphere.

For naming: New words and things are taught in the first period of naming e.g. New 3D shapes can be introduced such as cube, sphere, and cylinder or 2D objects like square, circle, and rectangle can be shown or different beans/pulses can be shown.

For grading positives: The same object but with different attributes are shown e.g big/small, tall/short, or lightweight and heavy.

For grading comparatives: Same object but a variation of its size/shape can be shown to help children understand comparison among same objects. e.g. Big, bigger and biggest or small, smaller and smallest.

For grading Superlatives: Same object but only extremes are shown e.g biggest cube, heaviest cylinder, or shortest cylinder are discussed.

 Period 2 “Recognition and Association”:

By the second period, children should be able to recognize the objects or their adjectives shown in the first period. In this period, children are asked to recognize the object when asked directly or indirectly like a teacher may ask giving some objects “which one  is a cube”? or “Bring me a cube from a workstation!” or “can you find a rectangle in our room?”  Similarly, for grading periods, the teacher may ask to bring the smallest cylinder or biggest cube.

This period should be repeated several times until the student displays a full understanding of the vocabulary.

 

Period 3 “Pronouncing Period”:

This is the last period in the series, where the student is tested for their previous knowledge. Directress asked for an object and the student is expected to answer with the correct word or the object attributes. e.g. Teacher may ask, holding an object or placing the finger on the object ”What is this?”  or “what is this amongst all these items?”

 

Memory Games

When the child shows full command over the vocabulary and objects taught to him and his interest starts fading away from the material, memory games are played to arouse the new interest in the material, to revise the concepts learned before, to prolong the child’s activity with the material, to discover more variations of the material.

Following are the few variations of memory games.

1. Matching at a distance:

In this game, two different workstations (tables or mats) are set at a distance. Then Take a pair of materials and put one on each table. e.g, two cubes or two spheres, etc are taken and placed one on each workstation.

Directress takes one of the objects from one workstation e.g. a cube is picked from one station and offers the child to feel it by holding it in his hand. Later, the child is asked to bring the same object from the distant workstation i.e: a cube from another workstation. Repeat this until all pairs of material matched correctly.

2.                  Grading from a Distance:

In this game, children have to arrange objects either ascending or in descending fashion. Two different workstations are placed at some distance. Place a grading material on one workstation randomly e.g. pink tower or cylinder blocks and then arrange orderly on the other workstation with the help of a child. This game can be played in two variations.

a)      From an extreme: In this variation of the game, we may start either from the smallest or biggest object and then ask children to bring the next one in order until we reach the other extreme of the object.

b)     From Midpoint: In this variation, the game can be started from the center of the arrangement, and the child is asked to either bring smaller than the picked one or bigger than the picked one. In the same way, the arrangement can be completed both ways.

 

3.  Stereognostic Game:

This game is to enrich the stereognosis sense in children. Play this game with a group of children, who are sitting around a workstation.

●       Directress gives a block to each child, for example, one block from the pink tower. Children hide them behind their back while holding them in their hands.

●       The directress asks for the largest block. Children feel them and put them on the table. If more than one child brings the block, give the wrong one back.

●       Repeat this until complete tower blocks are placed in the correct order.

4. Material to the Environment:

 In this game,  materials used in previous lessons are related to the environment. e.g. Color tablets/ shades, geometric shapes/ solids etc.

 

●       Put the material on the workstation, for example, color tablets.

●       The teacher points to one of the colors and asks children to find something from the environment which is of that color.

●       Repeat this for all the colors and shades.

 

Q4. Explain all exercises briefly in chapter 4.1 Exploring dimensions. Make illustrations/ diagrams and mention vocabulary also.

Ans. Exploring dimension is the foundation to build the visual sense of a child and enables a child to judge objects. Since there are several ways dimensions of an object can be judged, plenty of materials can be used to educate children about dimensions which are as follows.

1. The Cylinder blocks
2. Pink Tower
3. The Broad Stairs
4. Long Rods
5. The Knobless Cylinder

Some of the above-mentioned materials can be used together to do some advanced/extensive exercises.

The Cylinder Blocks

The cylinder blocks are made up of lacquered wood and can be used to teach children about the following dimensions.

●       Big and Small: For this purpose, the set of cylinders used vary both in terms of height and diameter. The largest cylinder is the tallest and thickest.

●       Deep and Shallow: Set of cylinders used to teach the concept of shallow and deep to vary both in height and diameter but in this case the tallest cylinder is thinnest whereas shortest is the thickest.

●       Thick and Thin: The set of cylinders used only vary in diameter.

●       Tall and short: The set of cylinders used only vary in height.

 

Exercises In this exercise, any of the above-mentioned sets of cylinder blocks are selected and blocks are taken out on a table holding from their knobs randomly and noiselessly and then placed back in either ascending or descending order. After one of the dimensions or size differences is taught this way, the same exercise is repeated for each above-mentioned cylinder set individually.

Once the child has mastered using one set of blocks, the number of sets given to him can be increased gradually until he has mastered using all four sets together and identifying different dimensions.

The Pink Tower

 

These are ten wooden cubes usually colored pink varying in size from one 1 cm3 to 10 cm3.

Exercises: These exercises should be performed on a mat rather than a table to avoid any accident as in the vertical arrangement of the tower there are chances of tipping over and may hurt the child also the height of the tower may be higher than the child. The exercises involving the pink tower are an ascending arrangement of cubes from largest to smallest. There are three variations of this exercise, in the first one the blocks are placed right in the center of the previous cube whereas, in other variations of the same exercise, one corner of each cube should be exactly above the other all the way up and in third variation cubes should be placed in a horizontal row on the floor rather than vertical.

Vocabulary:

Cube, Large / small, Large / larger / largest and small / smaller / smallest.

 

The Broad Stairs

They are 10 wooden prisms. Each length is 10 cm whereas their width and height gradually increase by one centimeter starting from 1 cm to 10cm. They give another perspective of dimension change by only varying in two dimensions.

Exercises:

With these stairs, we can arrange them horizontally on a mat starting from thickest to narrowest. The change in dimension can be taught by sliding your hand and feeling how gradually they decrease in size. For showing the more accurate change in dimension, hold the smallest prism with one finger at each end, and place it against each step to demonstrate that each stair differs by 1 centimeter.

Vocabulary:

Prism, Broad narrow, thick-thin, comparative vocabulary of thick, thin, narrow, and broad.

 

Note: There are many exercises involving the use of both pink towers and broad stairs. for example, arranging them side by side horizontally and vertically, arranging them alternately right and left in a vertical position called the monument, and many more.

The Long Rods

These are long wooden rods that vary by length only. Each rod differs by 10 cm.

Exercises:  They can be arranged horizontally and vertically increasing in length. The last rod can be taken and placed across each step to show the difference between two consecutive rods is 10cm. They can also be arranged in the form of a maze and the child may be allowed to walk around the maze without touching any rod. This serves the purpose of the exercise of grace.

Vocabulary: Comparative vocabulary of long and short.

The Knobless Cylinders

These are 4 sets of colored cylinders but they don’t have knobs. They serve the same purpose as cylinder knobs to teach children about dimensions like thick/thin, deep/shallow, tall/short, and big/ small but they provide less control of error as cylinder block won’t fit in their socket if misplaced but here child has to rely on his visual ability, therefore, they further refine children’s visual ability to discriminate dimensions.

Exercises: With these blocks, we can either make a tower or place them in a row incorrect incorrect gradual order.

 

Vocabulary: Comparative terms of tall short, big small, and thick thin.

 

Q4. How does the  Montessori program help develop Tactile sense?

Ans. Though our tactile sense is spread throughout our skin, in the Montessori program we make use of fingers and hands only to explore materials around and enhance the skills to judge the following properties of the material through touch:

❖     Texture

❖     Weight

❖     Temperature

Besides exploring the material’s above-mentioned properties, the Montessori program also includes exercises of Stereognostic sense that are also performed using the sense of touch. Based on which property of material they aim to explore; these exercises are divided into the following four categories

1)      Exercises To Explore Texture:

These exercises help the child to identify different textures of materials like rough, smooth, and their grades like silky smooth, sticky, bumpy rough, or coarse. For this purpose, materials used are touch boards, touch tablets, and fabric.

Touch boards are rectangular boards with part of their surface polished smooth and the rest of them covered with sandpaper. The purpose of these exercises is to refine the tactile sense through touching with sensitized fingers. Using touch boards also helps children to acquire better muscular control through the lightness of touch and prepare them for writing.

Touch Tablets 5 pairs of wooden tablets with different grades of roughness are used and children are asked to touch one of the tablets and find the matching pair with the same roughness. This exercise further refines the tactile sense to distinguish different textures.

Touch the Fabric In this exercise different types of fabrics are introduced to children and similar to touch tablets students first have to explore different natural and synthetic materials and later have to pair them up. This exercise not only develops tactile sense but also makes the child aware of different fabrics. Teachers may also explain the use of different fabrics for different purposes based on their textures. e.g Synthetic materials like nylon are used for aprons as they don’t soak water in them like cotton.

2)      Exercises To Explore Weight:

It is usually assumed that through touch we can distinguish between textures but our tactile sense also tells us about the weight of an object. This is more specifically called Baric Sense. This sense makes use of pressure on our body by different weighing objects. For this purpose, baric Tablets are used.

Baric Tablets consist of 3 boxes, each containing 6 wooden tablets. Each set is different in weight, color, and wood type. Using these sets of tablets children are trained to feel the weight, children are asked to sort the tablets by weighing them on their palms, through this exercise they will learn to distinguish light and heavy objects just by their tactile sense. This also indirectly prepares the children for mathematics and the measurement of weight.

3)      Exercises To Explore Temperature:

Our skin also sends neural signals to our brain about the temperature of objects we touch. In the Montessori program children are also trained to distinguish temperature through some purposely designed exercises and materials which are as follows:

Thermic Bottles are four pairs of bottles made up of conductive material and are filled with water at different temperatures. Children are allowed to touch the bottles to feel the temperature and paired with the bottle at the same temperature. This exercise refines the thermic sense of children and the ability of children to discriminate temperature.

Thermic Tablets are similar to baric tablets which differ in weight; these tablets are made of different materials which feel to have different temperatures at room temperature. for example steel, wood, marble, glass, and rubber. This exercise further enables children to distinguish temperature.

4)      Exercise to develop Stereognostic Sense:

Montessori programs also help the children to use both their tactile sense and muscular memory to recognize objects just by feeling them. For the development and enhancement of stereognosisstic sense,  the exercise of sorting trays and mystery bags is developed. How to perform these exercises and their purpose is already discussed in answer to question 2 in great detail.

 

Note: For all different exercises mentioned above to help in nurturing tactile sense the prerequisite is to sensitize fingers by washing the hands and patting the fingers dry by gently rubbing them on a towel.

 

Q6. Prepare material for Smell bottles and Mystery bags and send it along with your assignment papers.

Smell Bottles:

Mystery Bag: