ADDITIONAL INFO

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Simply put, Practical Life activities teach our children how to respect themselves, each other and their environment. They include everything from teaching a three year old to push in his or her chair whenever he or she stands up to letting a kindergartner who has mastered simple reading skills share the thrill of baking a cake with a fellow classmate. These activities address the child’s basic desire to feel competent, to be independent, and to belong. In addition, the practical life activities help children develop a sense of order and sequence, increase muscular coordination and hand/eye coordination, and provide an opportunity for concentrated purposeful work. The skills gained through work in the practical life area are essential for success in all other curriculum areas.

Practical life activities can be divided into the following categories:

• Care of the person: Includes activities such as hand washing, dressing, and personal hygiene. These activities embody the foundations of self-esteem.

• Care of the environment: Includes activities such as washing chairs, sweeping, dusting, cooking, feeding animals, watering plants, composting, recycling and job time at the end of the day. These activities promote the beginnings of community awareness and embody the foundations of an ecological ethic.

• Social relations: Maria Montessori called these exercises Grace and Courtesy. They include developing skills in greeting visitors, participating in a conversation, self-assertion, resolving conflicts, initiating and maintaining friendships.

• Coordination of movement: This includes many exercises involving hand/eye coordination, carrying objects, self-expression through movement as well as initiating and inhibiting actions and impulses.

These activities become progressively more detailed and complex as the child moves along the continuum. Each task utilizes a previously mastered skill while introducing a new skill.