Importance of Practical Life Exercises

The practical life exercises are the beginning activities for young children. These exercises improve motor control, eye hand coordination and concentration. The practical life exercises include environmental care, personal care, eating, dining and many more. Children love these practical life exercises and are also taught good work habits by being encouraged to complete the whole task. Teaching the children to be thoughtful of the rights of other children, they are prepared for a successful citizenship and career. The practical life activities contribute invaluably to the development of the whole person with inner discipline, self-direction and a high degree of concentration. In short, Practical Life Exercises are just that, they are Exercises so the child learns how to do living activities in a purposeful way.

Aim of Practical Life Exercises:

            The aim of practical life exercises is to facilitate learning through day to day work in the children’s home. By entrusting house work to young children, they learn important lessons; they execute their work with devotion and accuracy. By doing this they become singularly calm and dignified. These exercises are foundational to many aspects of Montessori education. The relationship between movement and cognition, these exercises are particularly important because they employ the body in the service of the mind to fulfill a meaningful goal.

           

            Children are attracted to precision in the early years, such that they like to know exactly what sequence of steps to carry out in an exercise. According to Montessori, during the sensitive period between births to 6 years of age the child is constructing his inner self. Child is preparing himself for the big world, using his motor skills and problem solving abilities. Child needs order and repetition of the same activity to refine certain skills. The child needs to move to gain balance, grace and confidence.

            Based on an idea that freedom implies self-sufficiency, exercises on practical life sought to train the growing children to master such essential skills and knowledge as dressing, maintaining themselves clean and tidy, dusting and sweeping, table-setting, meal and serving etc. Montessori aims at free activity not at the cost of good manners, social order and harmony. Children under the aged three to seven play and work under the supervision of a directress who does not act as a passive onlooker but as an active observer. The exercises of practical life are designed to teach the child to be independent, to supply his own wants and to perform the actions of daily life with skill and grace. Children keep the workplace in order, dusting and arranging the furniture, and putting away each piece of material as soon as they are through with it. They wait on themselves while they are working, getting out the things they want, finding a convenient place to work, and then taking care of apparatus when they have worked with as long as they like. Children do all the work connected with the meal, setting tables, serving food and the clearing away and washing the dishes. All children share alike in this work, regardless of their age. Children of three and four soon learn to handle the plates and glasses, and to pass food.

Importance of Exercises of Practical Life:

                Practical life exercises have designed to inspire movements directed to constructive ends. Some of the main purposes of including such exercises in the classroom are:

1.      To educate the children’s movements to be geared to a purpose

2.      To develop children’s ability to concentrate on a task

3.      To help children to carry out a series of steps in sequence

4.      To help children learn to care for the environment

One of an example of a practical life exercise in Montessori classroom is equipped with a set of material for Table washing. This set includes a large basin to fill with water, a plastic mat to go under the table, soap, a scrub brush, a sponge and a towel for drying. Items are all children sized and are usually of the same color so that they obviously go together. The teacher demonstrates for the child a precise sequence of actions that are carried out in Table washing. The child has probably also observed other children carrying out the sequence of actions, enabling him to learn by observation.

Dr. Montessori discovered the importance of the practical life exercises as follows:

1.      To enrich the child emotionally.

2.      To endow the child with affirming experiences.

3.      To encourage responsibility.

4.      To engage the child physically.

5.      To enliven the child constructively.

6.      To fascinate the child with learning.

7.      To enable the child to appreciate independence.

Two main purposes of practical life exercises:

·         First is the dignity of work. In the past, the child had an opportunity in the home to fold clothes, pour water, fetch and sweep. As a result, children developed motor skills of grace and fluid movement at an early age. More importantly, children developed competent participation around the home and the rest of their environment.

                                                                                 

·         Second reason for the practical life exercises is to enable children to organize themselves as functional human beings. To do this we must begin by the time the child is two years old, primarily physical and primarily concerned with himself. We must help him to become master of himself and then he will be able to master other things.