Happy 💐 Mother's Day to all the Mothers!
"I love Mom!"
. . . Adrian wrote today, and these are the sweetest words a Mother can wish for!
You can easily make this "touch and trace" sensory writing tray with materials readily available in your home. You will need:
- a large tray where you would pour the filler in (we are actually using a top from the floor table/see here or you can use a tray/see here),
- filler such as flour (what Adrian is using), sand, polenta, amaranth, salt, or sugar,
- a small rake or a fork to smooth out the filler (we are using a rake from this Zen Garden),
- colored cardstock (I used orange here) to give the activity a color-pop (buy here).
https://player.vimeo.com/video/217410410
"Happy Mother's Day! I love you!" said Adrian!
This stimulating sensorial activity is a great tool for a child to learn proper letter tracing (or number tracing). Adrian, while practicing writing, likes to refer to a Montessori: Letter Work book (buy here) for proper tracing directions. Each letter has its own "proper" way of writing, and some letters are more difficult to remember than others. For example, tracing letter "o" counter-clock is counterintuitive to Adrian, so it took a lot of practice to finally write all the letters correctly.
"Sensorial" comes from the word "sense(s)" where the child is able to concentrate on the refinement of all his/her senses, from visual to stereognostic. This "touch and trace" sensory writing tray uses predominantly the sense of touch and sight to engage a child and make learning fun. The purpose of any sensorial work is for a child to acquire clear understanding and to be able to then make classifications in his environment. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that sensorial experiences begin at birth. Through senses, the child studies the surrounding environment. Thereafter, through such study, the child begins to understand his/her environment. A child, to Dr. Maria Montessori, is a “sensorial explorer.”
By making a learning activity hands-on, while triggering child’s senses, you are bringing such activity to life! And the more diverse the sensorial exploration is, the more brain-stimulating-neurons are triggered, offering better chances of absorbing the learned material.
See here a 🎥 video of Adrian making Montessori Sensorial Tracing Tray using a polenta filler.
Happy 💐 Mother's Day! I hope your day is filled with fun sensorial explorations!
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