Why Practical Life activities?

Amit has just started school and his parents watch their little boy endearingly as he attacks real-life chores with serious determination. They are so proud to see him carefully spooning dried beans from one dish to another and concentrating hard to pick up the beans he has spilled. However, Emma’s parents watching their five year old following the steps to sew on a button are impatient to see some “real work” being carried out like reading, math or spelling. Even the best-informed Montessori parent may wonder whether the practical life activities may be using up time better spent on academic pursuits. Of course, Emma’s day is not spent solely on practical life activities but this is the area of focus to her parents.

We need to understand why these practical life exercises are so important in the primary Montessori classroom (ages 3-6) and how they relate to the child’s overall development. We should realize that mastery of the task itself is not the primary goal of these exercises.

Practical life activities may well be the most important work in the 3 – 6 classroom.

These activities lead a child to make intelligent choices and become physically and then mentally independent and responsible. The child learns to concentrate, control muscles, move and act with care, focus, analyze logical steps and complete a cycle of activity. This is the foundation for mental and physical work in all other areas, not just in early childhood but also throughout life.

Practical Life activities hone concentration and fine motor skills.

Children follow a sequence of prescribed directions, which include choosing the work on the shelf, finding a space at a table, following steps to complete the task, cleaning up and replacing the work exactly where it belongs on the shelf so it is ready for the next person. It is the small muscle coordination, motor sequencing, inner discipline leading to good social skills and work habits and ultimately self-esteem, which are so important and directly prepare for and support development in math, reading and writing.

Every child instinctively strives to grow and develop skills to the limit of his/her ability. A child’s love of the routines found in practical life activities, stems from a strong biological need to gain coordination. That need is especially strong between the ages of three and six years. At this age, the mind still runs faster than the abilities of the body. An older child may remember the steps needed to thread the needle, knot the thread, choose the button and piece of fabric and sew the button from front to back and then back to front without going around the edge of the button, but this knowledge may not yet match his/her developing physical ability. In this carefully prepared and stimulating environment children can respond to their inner need to work on a wide variety of skills until their physical abilities can keep up with their hands. Children are developing eye-hand coordination, upper body strength, balance and spatial perception. It is no coincidence that these are the basic prerequisites to successfully learn to read and write.

The practical life exercises have precise and orderly movements and are divided into steps, which are completed in a certain sequence that follow a logical progression (essential skills for understanding mathematical concepts). The concentration and inner discipline required to carry out multi-step procedures on their own help to prepare children for all of the complex academic materials they will encounter as they progress through the Montessori curriculum.

One of the greatest driving forces in the maturation of young children is the overwhelming desire to be independent. “I can do it by myself” is a phrase we hear over and over again. These practical life exercises reinforce this sense of self-sufficiency. Children discover they can exert control over their environment and such control carries with it certain responsibilities. What a thrill they feel when they have mastered a useful activity. They feel privileged as they gain the skills to progress to more and more complex tasks as they feel it implies respect for their skill and good judgment.

We can be sure that children of all ages, having experienced a continuous flow of small successes as they accomplish the exercises of practical life, will not only have the skills in place to continue with even more complex tasks, but will be happier, more confident and well-rounded individuals. They will be ready to progress through their school life with pride and the self-esteem to accept challenges, both practical and academic, with optimism and self-confidence.

Pouring work develops concentration and hand-eye coordination.

About the Article’s Author: Joan Starling, Founder, Sammamish Montessori School serving preschool, kindergarten and elementary students in Redmond WA.

Developing your child’s independence and self-reliance is one of the most important things we can do for our children.   While academic learning is important, it does not, and can not, take the place of the value of self-confidence, self-sufficiency, and the ability to make things happen for oneself.   Independence and self-reliance form the foundation that supports all other learning as a key component of honing a child’s executive functioning skills.  As Montessori teachers, our goal is to provide an organized environment where everything makes sense for the child, things have a specific place and function, and they can navigate and be successful independently within it.  Everything from the room design and layout, furniture, Montessori materials, lessons, classroom and school rules, and teacher-child interactions are carefully planned and intended to support each child’s progression toward self-sufficiency and independence.  There is much current research relating to the importance of executive functioning skills as a predictor of a child’s future success in life and encouraging independent learning is the way to support your child’s developing executive functioning.

Characteristics of an independent learner:

• Curious
• Self-motivated
• Able to self-monitor/self-examine
• Accountable/responsible
• Critical thinker/problem solver
• Comprehension/Understanding without specific instruction
• Persistent
• Able to manage their time effectively

As parents and as educators we have the responsibility to keep our children safe, to nurture them, and to love them.  We must provide firm, consistent rules and boundaries, yet we must also allow children the ability to do as much for themselves as is developmentally appropriate.  If we intervene and do for children what they are capable of doing themselves, we rob them of vital learning and make them feel as if they are not competent or capable.  While the road to independence may not always be easy, over time, children rise to the level of the expectations we have of them.

To aid our collaborative effort as teachers and parents in promoting your child’s independence, we thought it would be a useful tool to have a shared set of benchmarks guiding our expectations of our students both at school and at home:

Developing & Supporting Your Child’s Independence

For more information relating to developing your child’s independence and executive functioning, you may also wish to read the articles listed below:

Sources and additional references:

Dr. Steve Hughes: Montessori and the Future of Education (video)

20 Tips for Parents from Preschool Teachers

Toddler Developmental Milestones

Developmental Milestones in babies and toddlers

Developmental Milestones: Separation & Independence (Age 5)

Developmental Milestone: Separation & Independence (Age 6-8)

Developing Independence in Children

Executive Functioning

Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was the first woman physician in Italy.  She also had a degree in biological anthropology which honed her powers of meticulous observation and formed the basis of her system of education.  She was not trained as a teacher, although she did take some education classes so that she could observe the schools of the time.  This freed her up to study how children learn, in a detached and rational manner.  Her talent was to see children as they really are, not as adults think they are or ought to be.

Her first job was the director of a residential institute for developmentally delayed children who, because of superstition and shame in those days, were ostracized from their families. Believing that these children might be capable of some learning, she developed diagnostic and teaching materials based on the work of Itard and Sequin (researchers and educators) and continued to observe and experiment.  Many of these children were eventually able to pass the state exams.  Montessori remarked, “If these children are able to do so well, then typical children must surely be capable of achieving so much more.”

In January 1907 Montessori was asked to supervise fifty 3 to 7-year-olds who were running wild in the slums of San Lorenzo, a district of Rome.  She was given a room in a tenement building and one unqualified teacher.  She provided the children with some toys and her diagnostic materials (the basic sensorial materials) to give them more to play with. In time the children discarded the toys and go the diagnostic materials out of the cupboard on their own.  Over time more sensorial materials were added, using what was at hand (the color tablets are based on cards of colored embroidery thread).  Montessori taught them life skills, even how to blow their own noses.  They were excited to learn and progressed by leaps and bounds, even learning to read and write.  Montessori introduced child-sized tables and chairs, which were unknown at that time.  This whole phenomenon of children working at their own pace, using materials selected for their abilities and designed to stimulate independent exploration was new.  To see children’s natural curiosity satisfied and begin to experience the joy of discovering the world about them sparked worldwide interest.

Montessori noted that many children were frustrated by a lack of proper stimulation and inadequate opportunities to achieve.  She observed that children can have long attention spans when not interrupted.  They become happier and more self-controlled after a period of time in the orderly environment she had created, working with their hands and making their own discoveries. Here they were introduced to challenging tasks that not only absorbed their energies but also resulted in a sense of achievement.

This led Montessori to develop the planned system of education that bears her name.  Many Montessori schools were established during her lifetime and today there are thousands of private Montessori schools in the United States, hundreds of Montessori public school classrooms and countless Montessori schools operating throughout the world.

Principles of Montessori education:

• Movement and cognition are closely entwined; movement can enhance thinking and learning.
• Learning and well-being are improved when children have a sense of control over their lives.
• Children learn better when they are interested in what they are learning.
• Studies have shown that linking rewards to an activity (like gold stars or stickers) negatively impacts motivation to engage in that activity when the reward is withdrawn.  (It shifts the focus from the activity to the reward.)
• Children have a great sense of order and are more secure when there are no surprises.
• Until children develop at their own speed, they are not put in group situations where they could be perceived as fast or slow.
• The environment is conducive to children being able to casually observe lessons being given to the older children; this piques their interest and desire to progress.
• Older children are able to help younger children and this consolidates the older children’s knowledge and fosters kindness and good social skills.
• Older children act as role models for younger children (how to sit, follow directions, stand in line, etc.)
• The work in the classroom is sequential; a child does not progress onto the next step until the first set is fully mastered; in this way a child never encounters work that is too difficult and is never left floundering.
• A child encounters many small successes along the way and these build a child’s self-confidence.
• School should be a happy and positive experience to which a child looks forward with happy anticipation.
• Children who acquire basic skills in a natural way have the advantage of beginning education without drudgery, boredom or discouragement.  They gain enthusiasm for learning, which is the key to becoming a truly educated person.

Sensitive Periods:

Through keen observation, Montessori found that children have sensitive periods, a window when they are tuned in to certain stimuli.  These intense periods, when a child can learn instinctively, happen in the early years when the brain is forming itself.  The Montessori system is based on the unique cycle of learning that takes advantage of these sensitive periods.

Related links:

How to support your child’s Montessori experience at home

AMS – History of  Montessori

Benefits of a Montessori Education

The Dutch biologist Hugo de Vries was one of the first to notice “sensitive periods in development” when he referred to a species of caterpillar.  The baby caterpillars have a special sensitivity to light, which when they emerge from their eggs on the trunk of the tree, causes them to be drawn to the tips of the branches where they can eat the new, tender buds.  The caterpillars lose this sensitivity when they are bigger and stronger and are able to eat the tougher, older leaves.  It is interesting that the disappearnce of this sensitivity is as important as its presence.  Montessori pointed out that conditions extremely favorable to development at one stage may become unfavorable at a later one.

Montessori philosophized that similar things happen in childhood and now contemporary research shows that children indeed pass through certain critical periods that are conducive to developing specific skills: windows of opportunity during which the brain is particularly efficient at specific types of learning.  That is why at particular times they show intense, overwhelming interest in certain objects and activities, which at a later time, will be quite boring.  It is as if a burning passion urges them to focus attention to the exclusion of others.  When a sensitive period is at its height, it is as if a spotlight illuminates some things while others are in the shadows.  Under this fascination, children will work long periods without fatigue and will not feel tired, but refreshed.

One of the most interesting periods is that for language acquisition.  It begins at birth and is intense until about 7 years old.  Babies love to hear the human voice and will listen attentively, tuning out other sounds.  Montessori teachers are very careful to present materials without talking because children instinctively look at their mouth rather than the demonstration. Abused children who have little communication with adults never develop good vocabularies.  Learning a foreign language is much more difficult after age 7 and can be drudgery after 12.  By then the sensitive period is well and truly over and the child is embarking on a different kind of learning.

The sensitive period for language has social implications too.  The languages of the world can only survive if they are learned by babies and attempts to revive dead languages are not usually successful for this reason.

Another fascinating sensitive period is that of order.  This appears about two years of age and lasts until about age four.  It is a difficult time for parents who do not understand it and is probably the cause of most temper tantrums.  During this period children exhibit a passionate interest in the order of things.  Children have a real obsession that everything be kept in its proper place and that everything happens at its proper time.  Children drive parents crazy with their love of rituals.   Let the furniture be changed around, a new picture appear on the wall, or their place at the table changed and your child will notice immediately, and possibly turn into a tyrant.  It is sometimes hard for the adult to fathom out what has caused the child to become so bent out of shape.

Even though adults are distressed by disorder, we are mainly concerned with how it affects our comfort and efficiency; we are not constructing our intelligence by it.  A teenager will have already sorted out hundreds of experiences, and filed everything in memory to draw upon to help understand the world.  Children start out with a chaos of images but the sorting process is built in and must be completed so that foundation is firm.  We can help at home by acknowledging this need and by keeping as much continuity as possible during this time.  Even though children are particular about how a placemat should be put in front of them, their ability to keep order is not good.  However, they enjoy the process and can help to keep their room in order if given small isolated tasks to accomplish. Keep it simple and fun.  In this way, it will become a lifelong habit.

In school, order is important.  Everything has its place and because of this sensitive period, children quickly form a memory of the position of the materials in the classroom.  They take tremendous delight that things are always in the same place and love to tell you where everything goes.  Without this sensitive period for order, it would be quite impossible to give a class of preschool children the freedom of a Montessori classroom.

The sensitive period for justice comes in about six years old and continues intensely for several years.  These are the years when every child has to be given exactly the same size scoop of ice cream because otherwise someone will notice instantly and either gloat or feel slighted.  Children can be terribly unfair to each other at this stage but have an insatiable need to debate that things be seen to be fair.

There are other sensitive periods but it is useless to try to make up for the sensitive period once it has passed.  We have missed the bus.  It is possible to learn a foreign language when we are older but it is hard work, not pure delight.  It is a joy for the three and four year old to know the names of the geometric shapes they see every day when they are in the sensitive period for enjoying shapes and words, but it is such a chore for the older child to have to learn them.

Children live in the present and are totally engulfed by their sensitive periods.  Be reassured that the obsessions of the moment are not permanent, but each one has a purpose and a time and its effects add to the foundations of a lifetime.

Sensitive Periods:

Young children go through “sensitive periods” when they are more receptive to learning a particular skill.  Sensitive periods do not necessarily come at precisely the same time in each child’s life, but all children experience them.  It is important for parents and teachers to be aware of these phases so they may better understand the child.  They can then support the child in his/her all-consuming desire to absorb a particular concept or learn and practice a particular skill during these times.  Once these sensitive periods are over they will never return.  The child will still learn but not with such ease and intensity as before.

The following is a general guide to the times when a young child can best learn specific skills and concepts; they do not always apply to individual children:

• birth to 3 – sensory experiences
• birth to 1-½ – learning through movement
• birth to 7 – development of language
• 1½ to 4 – development of muscular coordination
• 2 to 4 – concern with order in the environment and routines
• 2 to 6 – refinement of senses, development of social skills
• 3 to 6 – sensitivity to adult influences
• 3½ to 4½ – writing
• 4 to 4½ – sense of touch
• 4½ to 5 – reading