12-152022
Birth to 6 years
The absorbent mind: the mind soaks up information like a sponge.
Sensory learning and experiences: the child uses all five senses-touch, taster, smell, sight, and hearing-to understand and absorb information about his or her environment.
Maria Montessori observed that young children learn in a unique way from prenatal life to about six years old. The absorbent mind is the image she created to describe, "this intense mental activity." Since the neonate has to learn everything (he has no tools other than reflexes to survive), but has no language or conscious will to learn the way adults do, he must acquire his survival skills in some other way. Montessori said that the child learns by unconsciously taking in everything around him and actually constructs himself.