Sensorial

The child explores the world through sense—the very youngest child desires to touch, taste, feel everything in sight. In the 3-6 classroom, or Children’s House, students are offered a wide array of learning experiences that satisfy that need of the young child.

So rich are the sensorial materials at this level that collectively they provide foundations for geometry, math, language, art and music. But for the 3-6 year old child the focus is often on learning to observe, internally classify, and acquire the specific language for their diverse world.

Concepts such as length, weight, size, and pitch are introduced to the child to help make sense of her world. In this ways the mind is educated and trained to discriminate and appreciate the beauty of the world.

The hidden treasure of these materials is the underlying mathematical principles that lead the child to the next point of discovery.

 Using the pink tower, the child sees the relationship between smallest and largest and develops the language that accompanies it. Indirectly, the pink tower provides children the opportunity to practice fine motor control and hone hand/eye coordination as they build. However, with its ten cubes ranging in size from 1 centimeter cubed to 10 centimeters cubed, the pink tower also lays the foundation for understanding the base ten system or decimal system, and volume (the largest cube would hold 1 liter of water if hollow).