Sensorial Work in the Elementary Environment

Last month I talked about how practical life in primary translates into elementary activity.  This month I want to discuss how the sensorial work the children do in the primary sets them up with a good set of skills to tackle elementary work. 

       Almost from the very beginning of primary, children are given demonstrations on materials that help them explore their senses.  They learn how to grade shapes, sizes, colors, dimensions.  They strengthen their hands and muscles with tracing.  They learn how to hold a pencil to trace shapes in metal insets.  Always, they are learning how to discern patterns.

       The children come to the elementary ready to take on the more abstract and complex lessons of language, math, and science.  Their hands and fingers have been prepared by all the work they have done with knobbed materials (maps, knobbed cylinders) so that they can move into the work of writing in cursive and creating interesting stories and reports. 

        Mostly this sensorial preparation appears in the areas of elementary math and science.  The children have learned how to discern patterns repeatedly.  What are math and science if not patterns?  Learning how to discover how numbers and scientific concepts fit into the larger pattern is a lifelong pursuit that elementary children are well prepared for.

         One example:  In primary, the children have worked with the binomial and trinomial cubes strictly on a sensorial basis.  They do not go into the idea of what a binomial and a trinomial are. In elementary, the children take this knowledge of pattern and start discovering it in many places.  They see it when they transform a square into a binomial and a trinomial.  At this point, they do learn how to represent it mathematically.  They see it when they construct their own binomial cubes with the cubing material.  They see it when they learn the pattern and concept of square roots and cube roots.  That familiar pattern becomes an old friend to carry into the world of abstract math when they get older and will deepen their understanding of mathematics.

          One of the true joys of teaching Montessori elementary is to see how these primary concepts carry forward into new work.  It is important at the time for the development of the young child, but also maintains its importance as the child advances into the second plane.

Mrs. Stone, Millipede Teacher