The Stereognostic Bag

The Stereognostic Bag is a material that is easy for anyone to make, and loads of fun to use.  It can be found on many Sensorial shelves, made to exercise and refine the ability to observe and compare shapes that cannot be seen by the eye.  All you need is an opaque bag, matching objects, and a curious child.   It is always exciting to come up with variations on this material to fit the interests of your children.  I have made bags full of shells,  blocks, legos, beans, toy cars, animal figurines, buttons, and magnets.  All the items don’t need to be in one theme, but sometimes it’s nice to incorporate other areas of study into Sensorial work, like a bag with felt numbers, or alphabet magnets.  The more beautiful the objects are, the more little hands they’ll meet!

Before presenting this work, be sure the child has mastered the concept of matching and that mouthing the objects isn’t an issue.  First, take out all of the objects from the bag and look at them.  After putting them all back in, pull just one out.  Using only the sense of touch inside the bag, try to find the matching object.  It’s very fun!

Jessie is a Primary Montessori Teacher and Mom to twin three year olds and a five year old.  Jessie has a Montessori blog at The Education Of Ours, and can be found on Twitter.  See her other Mommy Moment posts here.