Practical Life Activities; I wish someone would have told me the truth before I started buying into everything on social media. Practical life activities should be tailored to your child’s need and your families’s interests. You can successfully start implementing practical life activities for your children today by applying a few easy principles.
What Is Montessori Practical Life?
The Montessori approach to life focuses heavily on a child’s capabilities, curiosity and desire for independence. Practical life refers to the tasks we do a consistent basis in regards to our environment and body. If we were to look at practical life skills from a high school perspective we would refer to a Home Economics class. In Home Economics teenagers study cooking, budgeting, cleaning, child development, personal hygiene and other topics. Many of these same topics are important at the toddler stage of development as well. Practical life activities give children meaningful ways to contribute to their household. You have probably noticed that toddlers and preschool age children generally enjoy being helpers. Montessori practical life activities gives children a task, goal and sense of pride upon completion.
Practical life activities will be different based on your families’ needs. If you have a pet there will be pet duties. Homes with yards may have outdoor work such as cutting grass, planting flowers or watering a garden. Children that need to get up and ready for daycare will benefit from learning to dress themselves and put on their shoes. As you can see the activities vary greatly based on your family priorities, the key is to keep these activities “practical”.
Why Are Practical Life Activities Important?
These Montessori practical life skills are more than just adorable video reels for Instagram. Dr. Montessori observed a direct correlation between how a child uses his hands and his intellect. He wants you to “help me do it by myself”. When a child can works with his hands he not only strengthens his body but his intellect and character.
…a child’s character remains rudimentary unless he finds opportunities for applying his powers of movement to his surroundings.
The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori
Dr. Montessori’s first Children’s House ( A Children’s House is an environment for children between ages 2.5-6 years old) was bustling with children who performed practical life skills with joy. These tasks involved hands for cleaning, cooking and serving each other meals. In a typical Montessori Children’s House, the students have a three hour fairly uninterrupted work period. They are free to move around the room as they please. Younger children often spend their time working with practical life tasks. It is the foundation for all that lies ahead in their educational tenure.
The Montessori practical life is a building block for gross and fine motor skills, academic focus and social development. Let’s look deeper into each of these categories.
Fine and Gross Motor Skills
During the young childhood years most children grow at a remarkable rate. As children become taller they often acquire new skills, from crawling to standing, then walking and running. All of these skills a relentless spirit and repetition. Montessori practical life activities give children as many opportunities to practice as they want.
Fine Motor Movement is how you use the muscles in your fingers and hands, these movement are concise and require great focus. It takes time and repetition to hone these skills.
A child uses fine motor skills all day long.
- Picking lint off your jacket.
- Buttoning pants.
- Pinching a leaf from a stem.
- Using tweezers to pull out a splinter.
- Picking up Cheerios to feed yourself.
- Placing a coin in parking meter.
Gross Motor Movements refer to your large muscle groups in your arms, legs, torso and back. People who are labeled “clumsy” may just need more time focusing on gross motor movement.
A child uses gross motor skills all day long.
- Running down a grassy hill.
- Jumping rope on the sidewalk.
- Climbing the monkey bars.
- Skipping in a parking lot.
- Balancing on the curb.
- Twirling and spinning in circles.
- Jumping from playground equipment and landing on your feet.
Academic Growth
Children make great strides academically during the years of 2.5 to 6. Some children will learn to read and write. Others might memorize their phone number, address and the words to their favorite book. This is a time of enormous change and this change requires tremendous effort and focus. Montessori practical life skills bring a child through sequenced events from start to finish.
Let’s take for instance making a glass of lemonade. What does this require from a child? He is learning all the time that he is working on his lemonade. If he wants to make a glass of lemonade he must do more that retrieve a lemon from the counter. He must complete a series of tasks in sequence. This trains his mind to follow steps, make corrections along the way and focus on the end goal, a refreshing glass of sweet lemonade. If he forgets the sugar he will discover this when he taste his tart drink. He has the opportunity to change what he is doing based on his own observations. Because he has practiced so many times he understand how to move efficiently and use his time wisely.
Cleary you can see how these skills will transfer to his academic work. All of the time spent making lemonade is a training ground for his mind and body. He is connecting the work of his hand with the work of his mind. The two cannot be separated, because when they are not used in tandem, learning becomes disjointed and unnatural.
Social Development
A Montessori child will spend much of his time with Grace and Courtesy lessons. Learning to serve others, be empathetic and how to conduct himself in various situations. These lessons will serve him well when he is on the playground, at daycare or at home with his siblings. Montessori practical life activities given children ample opportunities to practice what to do in social situation and how to do it. It’s more than saying please and thank you. Montessori lessons challenge young minds to think of others before themselves. They will role play and this practice will give them confidence when they are in the moment. My own children love these lessons, we have impromptu grace and courtesy lessons all the time when I see an area that needs shoring up. Politeness can be learned and learned well. I have found that the lessons I teach my children I often need myself. You’re never too old for grace and courtesy practical life activities.
Model, Model, Model
The best way to teach your child a practical life skill is to model it. Do the skill in your child’s presence and invite them to join you. Give them a chance to imitate your behaviors and don’t correct them unless they are in danger. When the activity is complete put the materials or supplies away. By putting away your materials you are modeling for the child that cleaning is a part of practical life. If your child takes an interest in some of your household chores think of a way you can model it for them. Your child is already observing and copying you anyway so you might as well take advantage of that attention. Work slowly and methodically, try not to explain what you’re doing. Just model and give your child plenty of opportunities to practice with you and on their own.
Practical Life Activities: The Do’s And Don’ts
Do model an activity for a child.
Don’t correct the child while they are working. Allow the child to complete the task and model how to the activity again at a later date. Children, and all humans, learn from their mistakes, if you are constantly pointing out their flaws the child may feel inadequate.
Do allow children to complete a task.
Don’t start a task unless there is plenty of time for the child to complete the task, remember to include clean up time.
Do give children challenging and meaningful work.
Don’t give children “pretend” work and expect for them to get the same level of fulfillment.
Do thank them for their hard work, simply saying “thank you for helping me” is enough. Children enjoy making an effort. Try not to cheat their effort by placing your value on their work.
Don’t praise them excessively for completely their task. If children constantly receive praise for the smallest of tasks they will come to expect and need that praise in order to continue. Despite the hype, high fives, sticker charts and treats are unnecessary forms of reward.
Choosing Practical Life Activities
Start with making observation about what practical life activities you perform on a daily basis. Here are some tasks you probably perform regularly.
Washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, brushing hair, getting dressed, putting on your seat belt.
Okay you get the idea.
Next look at how your child can help you perform these activities in a safe way. Keep in mind that you may have to get creative and oftentimes it’s a longer process when you include children. In the Montessori world we call this being the “prepared adult”. The prepared adult has to look ahead to the child’s needs and do some troubleshooting. We essentially want the child to do as much as they can independently.
Practical Life Activity 1: Laundry
Our laundry remove is on the main level of our house. There are no tricky stairs for a toddler to navigate with a basket of dirty clothes. I begin my asking my toddler to bring me his clothes for he and his brother’s room. The basket is perfect for him to push across the floor and that’s what he does if he can’t lift it. Once he’s brought me the laundry he goes to get his stool and brings it to the laundry room. I open the washer machine and pickup the basket so he can throw in the laundry. When it comes to the dryer he is able to empty the lint trap because it’s in a convenient location. He take the lint to the trash can and returns for his next job. Since he cannot reach into the washer machine, it’s a top loader, I remove the clothes and put them in the basket for him. Finally he throws the wet clothes into the dryer and shuts the door. Remember I told you this will take more time. However if you’re prepared then this process though lengthy will be smooth.
Practical Life Activity 2: Window washing
All of my children have enjoyed window washing. Essentially adding water to any practical life activity makes it that much more enjoyable. Water makes everything better. Once your child gets the hang of cleaning the windows it truly is an independent task. When my son washes the front door he uses a child sized water bottle and an old dish rag that I cut down to size. Part of being a prepared adult is making sure that children have proper equipment which normally means a smaller size.
I modeled how to wash a window and I’ve washed windows with my son at least a dozen times. Because he’s done this work with me, he’s able to do with minimal assistance. The goal isn’t for him become a window washer but for him to complete a the tasks.
Keep It Practical
Do what makes sense for your family. If your family doesn’t have houseplants, do feel pressure to buy a houseplant so your child can water it. That is impractical for your family and therefore is not a practical life activity. There was a time when I had 4 young children with me each day and it was important that the three year olds could put on their seatbelts. This was a practical life activity that we practiced because it was essential for us getting out the door and to the YMCA for me to workout. On the whole Montessori practical life activities should align with your family’s needs. You have what it takes to be a prepared adult who has the foresight to create practical life activities for your child. Use your life and home for inspiration and see where you go from there.
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