Mystery Bag (Stereognostic Bag)

Direct aim. To recognize objects by their shape through touch alone.

Indirect aims, the ones you will not see at once

A drawstring bag of thick cloth you can't see through, wide enough for a child's hand and wrist. A pillowcase works.

Five or six everyday objects the child can name, as different in shape as you can find: a spoon, a ball, a wooden block, a toothbrush, a clothes peg, a small cup.

Later, a bag of pairs. Bought bags often come with two sets of small wooden solids, one per bag, for matching by touch.

Montessori blindfolded the child for this work. Her first material was Froebel's bricks and cubes, 24 in all. The bag came later, in the albums, and hides the eyes without a blindfold.

A small mat to lay each object on once it's named.

1. 1Sit beside the child with the bag and the mat. Take each object out, say its name, and hand it over to feel with eyes open.Say "Spoon. Ball. Block." Just the name with each one.
2. 2Put them all back in the bag while the child watches.Silent Let the child see every object go in.
3. 3Reach in without looking. Move your hand slowly over one object: turn it, find its ends and its edges.Silent Look at the child or at the ceiling, so it's plain you aren't peeking.
4. 4Say what you think it is before taking it out.Say "I think this is the spoon." Said before the object comes out.
5. 5Draw it out, look at it, and lay it on the mat.Say "Yes, the spoon." Then lay it down.
6. 6Pass the bag to the child and invite a turn.Say "Can you find something without looking?" Then sit back.
7. 7Once the child names every object, change a couple of them. Later, bring out a bag of pairs: feel one, then find its twin.Silent Swap objects a few at a time.

Guessing first, then pulling the object out to see.

The moment a hand closes on something and knows it at once.

Two objects of the same shape and different size.

Finding a twin by feel alone.

Looking. The child names the object, draws it out, and sees whether the hand was right. Nobody needs to correct; the object does it.

Montessori’s name for this check is the control of error.

• A bag of pairs: feel one object, then find its twin
• The geometric solids in the bag, named by touch
• Squares of different fabrics, matched by feel
• A partner game: one child names an object and the other finds it
• Sorting two kinds of dried beans into two bowls with the eyes closed, as Montessori's children sorted grains

Variations

This work needs only the material, so it has no printable of its own. The shelf plan below places it among the other works for the same age.

Free to print for your family, no email needed. Print at 100%, not “fit to page”, so the drawings keep their scale. Every printable on the site is listed on the printables page.

Ready for the first presentation

Ready for the next lesson

Every object must be too big to swallow. A common home test is a toilet-paper tube: anything that slips through it is too small for a child under 3.

Montessori's children used coins. In a home with a toddler, leave out coins, marbles, magnets and anything with a button battery.

We have not bought the paid homeschool curricula, so they are not listed here.

1. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (1912)

   Chapter XIII, Education of the Stereognostic Sense

   The education of the stereognostic sense leads to the recognition of objects through feeling, with the tactile and muscular senses working together.

   With Froebel's bricks and cubes the child first feels the two forms with eyes open, then places cubes to the right and bricks to the left without looking, and finally repeats the exercise blindfolded.

   A little girl of three, one of the youngest pupils, sorted the twenty-four cubes and bricks blindfolded, recognizing each object at the first light touch.

   The stereognostic exercises may be multiplied with small objects such as toy soldiers, little balls and coins, and children come to tell apart grains as similar as corn, wheat and rice.

   The children are very proud of seeing without eyes, holding out their hands and crying that they can see with their hands.

   Chapter XII, Education of the Senses

   For the tactile, thermic, baric and stereognostic exercises the child is blindfolded, which greatly increases the interest of normal children.

2. Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook (1914)

   Sensory Education

   The special muscular sensibility of the child from three to six years of age stimulates him to use the stereognostic sense, recognizing forms by the movement of the hand over solid objects.

   With closed eyes the child can recognize objects such as Froebel's bricks and cubes, marbles, coins, beans and peas, and pick out those that are alike into separate heaps.

Lesson text and the scope and sequence are CC BY 4.0: reuse them with credit to Owen Wren, Homeschool Montessori, and a link. Photos and illustrations are all rights reserved. Terms.