Montessori Materials and the Hand-Brain Connection

Children explore through their senses. As parents, it can be difficult to allow a child to explore everything through touch and even taste. Dr. Maria Montessori’s study and today’s neuroscience studies, showcase a strong hand-brain connection in our everyday understanding of the things around us. To support her students, Dr. Maria Montessori personally developed materials to support the hand-brain connection in her learning environments. We are here to help you understand the purpose of Montessori’s first physical materials she introduced to students during her research, why these materials are important and how these materials were developed. We would encourage you to find ways you can help your child explore through their senses, at home and out in nature. 

All of the materials we will share today are still fundamentally important in the Montessori classroom. If you missed our blog post introducing Dr. Maria Montessori and the foundation of Montessori's methods, click here to begin your understanding of the method and come back to this post to learn more about how Dr. Maria Montessori put into action the hand-brain connection in her classrooms. 

Montessori developed hands-on materials to support her theory. These materials change as one moves through the four Planes of Development outlined in the Montessori method. It is important to note that each material is carefully crafted with key components. All materials have a built-in “control of error,” meaning the materials are self-correcting, allowing students to complete the material independently and with little intervention. Each Material is designed to teach a single concept. Materials are very sensory-based, drawing a child in to physically touch the material, look at the material (study) and in some cases hear, taste or smell a material. Materials are designed to be made out of natural elements, presented in beautiful and clean ways to draw students in. 

Short Bead Stair

Montessori’s first materials included: the Seguin Boards (or Tens Boards); the Brown Stair; and the Short Bead Stair. 

The Seguin Boards were designed as a mathematical material to learn how numbers are made up of tens and units. They give a hands-on way for children to see, touch and understand that numbers like 23 are made of two tens and three ones. 

The Brown Stair helps children develop their visual and tactile sense of size and thickness. The Brown Stair allows for a child to see and feel the difference in width and understand the concept of size and dimension. Each piece changes in weight, further allowing children to understand the concept of size. This material prepares them for later learning in math, geometry and comparison. 

The Short Bead Chains in Montessori help children count, skip-count and see number patterns in a concrete way. The chains have later expanded and allow children to learn to count by 2s, 3s, 4s and so on, and understand how numbers grow in sequence. This material gives a visual and hands-on foundation for more advanced concepts of multiplication, squares and number relationships. 

Geometric Solids

As Montessori further developed her method, she added: Geometric Solids, Red and Blue Rods (also called Measuring Rods), the Botany Cabinet and the Sandpaper Letters. As with her prior works, these materials were designed for students to explore through the hand-brain connection. Montessori carefully studied and developed the materials to be touched and maneuvered in ways where children can physically feel and see the concepts being introduced to them. Each material begins as a foundational concept and later expands into larger, more abstract, concepts used all through a child’s educational years. 

The Geometric Solids help children recognize and understand 3D shapes through hands-on exploration of the physical material. Children learn the names and properties of solid shapes and build a foundation for understanding geometry, spatial awareness, and the shapes found around them every day. 

Red and Blue Rods or the Measuring Rods, guide children to see and feel the length of each number and learn to count from one to ten. They give a clear, hands-on way to understand number size, sequence, and the beginning of addition. 

Red and Blue Rods

The Botany Cabinet allows children to recognize, name, and compare different leaf shapes found in nature. It builds observational skills and a foundation for scientific classification and nature study. 

Perhaps one of the most iconic or well known materials, the Sandpaper Letters, helps children learn the shapes and sounds of letters through touch and sight. This tool helps connect children to each letter’s sound with its shape by tracing and feeling each letter. They build a strong foundation for writing, reading, and phonetic awareness.  

Today, there are physical materials used that expand beyond Montessori’s original seven materials. Montessori classrooms have hundreds of materials today thanks to Dr. Maria Montessori herself and later educators that followed Dr. Montessori’s established philosophy of hands-on learning with physical materials. 

In the Montessori classroom, you will see a lot of open shelves, with materials presented on them in a way that is not overwhelming. This often looks like a low and wide shelf that may only have two or three materials on each shelf, depending on the shelf’s size. The spacing between materials is critical. The Montessori environment is very intentional, clean cut and always designed for students to independently grab their work. At Goldenrod Montessori, we take pride in our environment ensuring the independent nature of our classroom setup and supporting the hand-brain connection in our everyday learning. 

To learn more about the four Planes of Development, please follow us on social media, sign up for our newsletter, and watch for our next blog post. We will be sure to share with you all soon, how you can incorporate Montessori at home.