THE ROLE OF MONTESSORI LEARNING MATERIALS IN HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY OF THE CHILD

Montessori pedagogija, te posebno rad sa specifičnim didaktičkim materijalima koje je razvila Maria Montessori, nakon više od stoljeća od njihova nastanka, još uvijek izazivaju interes odgajatelja, učitelja i pedagoga stoga što na djeci zanimljiv način potiču cjeloviti razvoj ličnosti te kroz igru na nenametljiv način omogućuju učenje složenih i teških sadržaja. Stoga je glavni cilj ovoga rada bio analizirati važnost, ulogu i primjenu didaktičkih materijala u Montessori pedagogiji. Analizirani su materijali za razvijanje osjetila, učenje matematike, jezika, kozmičkog te religijskog odgoja. Posebna vrijednost ovih materijala počiva u autokorekciji, intrizičnoj motivaciji djeteta za rješavanjem zadataka, te korelaciji različitih područja i sadržaja pri radu s pojedinim materijalom.Montessori pedagogy, especially activities with specified didactic materials which were developed by Maria Montessori, over a century later from their development, still provoke interest within many educators, teachers and pedagogues because, on an interesting way for children, they stimulate the holistic development of a child’s personality as well as they enable learning of complexed and demanding contents on an unobtrusive way by playing. Therefore, the main purpose of this scientific work was to analyze the importance, role and implementation of didactic materials in Montessori pedagogy. Materials for sensory system development, learning of mathematics, language, cosmic and religion education have been analyzed. Selfcorrection nature of the materials, child’s intrinsic motivation for resolving tasks and correlation between different fields and contents when working with materials is their’s especial validity