Practical Life Exercises
The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaption to the environment
Children are naturally interested in activities that they have witnessed. Therefore Dr. Montessori began using what she called “practical life exercises” to allow the child to experience activities of daily life which helps them to connect to the community.
Our Curriculum
What Is Montessori Practical Life?
Practical Life activities help to develop your child’s fine motor skills, confidence, concentration and independence. The two key areas of Montessori Practical Life are:
- Care of Self
- Care for Their Environment
Young children are naturally very curious and Practical Life activities take advantage of this motivation for learning. Through doing daily tasks, specially designed materials and an ideal learning environment, children can learn useful life skills at each stage of development. What they learn is based on their abilities and interests.
Practical life activities are simple day to day purposeful and realistic activities that children have seen you perform at home. Recent research has found children prefer realistic activities to pretend equivalents. These activities help the children to settle into the environment, its purposeful work, builds hand eye coordination, develops concentration, order, independence and perfects finer movements and coordination.
Montessori saw the child’s need for order, repetition and movement. Practical life exercises helps to aid the child to develop his coordination, movement, balance and gracefulness and help lay the foundation for other areas of learning and development.
Our Curriculum
Montessori Practical Life Activities
There are many Practical Life activities that your child will benefit from at our Montessori School in Dandenong. Some examples of Care of Self activities include:
- Learning to Wash Hands
- Getting Dressed/Undressed
- Preparing Food or Juice
- Packing Lunch Box
The activities that your child participates in will depend on their age and their willingness to learn something. They’ll grasp basic activities that are important in daily life, helping them to work independently and build confidence.
Care of Their Environment activities include:
- Cleaning The Classroom
- Watering Plants
- Cleaning Dishes
- Flower Arranging
- Pegging Clothes on a Washing Line
- Cleaning Tables
Montessori classrooms are specially designed to be children-centred. Activities can be carried out in a safe and fun way at the child’s own pace.
In addition to the preliminary practical life activities, children are introduced to care of self, care of the environment, control of movement and grace and courtesy which contributes to the peaceful and compassionate atmosphere in a Montessori classroom.
Our Curriculum
Why Are Practical Life Activities Important?
Practical activities allow children to proudly complete tasks independently. They learn how to rely on themselves and the Montessori method harnesses the child’s naturally curious nature so they can carry out tasks at school and at home.
Whilst some activities may seem simple, children are actually learning a complex motor sequence in order to get the result they want. They’re learning how to concentrate, rely on themselves and enforce self-discipline. The ability to follow logical steps, rectify mistakes and fully complete a task are essential parts of the more academic areas of the Montessori curriculum too.
Through fun and rewarding activities, children learn how to make intelligent choices that they can apply throughout their lives.