Children from birth to age six are in their “sensitive period” for exploring the world through their senses. Maria Montessori encouraged us to provide children with many opportunities to organize the sensory impressions they’ve been receiving since birth. By your careful selection of items of different textures, colors, sizes, and geometric shapes, children will discover relationships and exclaim, “This bolt is a hexagon,” or “This cloth is rough.” Sensorial experiences also indirectly prepare children for future exploration of language, mathematics, geometry, art, and music.
