Our activities in action! What we do and why we do it.
Practical Life Tools
Montessori practical life activities help children to develop independence, concentration, and motor skills through purposeful activities. These activities are based on real-life experiences and are designed to encourage children to learn how to do things for themselves. The skills acquired through practical life activities cross over to other areas of learning, such as reading and writing.
The four aspects of practical life in Montessori are care of the self, care of the environment, grace and courtesy, and control of movement.
Practical life activities include pouring water into a cup, cutting your own fruit, using tweezers or tongs to pick up small objects, watering plants, buttoning and zipping clothing, and polishing cutlery.
Nature Table
Introducing children to natural elements from land, air and sea - seed pods, rocks, shells, feathers, and both fresh and dried leaves - provides them with the opportunity to explore nature on a sensory level and understand the interconnectedness of the natural world. It also helps develop observational skills, introduce new language into a child's vocabulary, and encourage a love and respect of nature.
Instruments such as magnifying glasses and tweezers encourage children to further explore each individual element to appreciate its size, weight, texture and smell, developing their sense of wonder and desire for knowledge and understanding of their world.
Threading
Threading is a fun and practical activity that has many developmental benefits, including fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, colour recognition, concentration and perseverance, and is an early introduction to maths.
The development of these fine motor skills is essential for hand and wrist muscles, and children need to practice using these muscles prior to undertaking any type of drawing or writing. These are skills that children will build up on over time through activities such as threading to better prepare them for writing at school.
Glassware
Why do we use glass in Montessori?
Aside from being a natural and aesthetically pleasing material, working with these beautiful glass rocks by manipulating them with a glass spoon is beneficial to brain development. It helps children develop control of their movements through slow and purposeful actions, while promoting sensorial exploration. It also teaches care and consequences, encouraging children to take care of self and their environment.
Tweezers and Tongs
Transferring and sorting small objects using child sized resources, like these tongs, is an essential skill building activity and precursor to successfully holding a pencil using a tripod grasp. Gripping the tongs requires a very similar hand placement, with the thumb on one side and the pointer and middle fingers working together on the other to complete the pinching movement.
Using tweezers and tongs is a complex skill that requires ample practice and exposure to build up muscle strength and achieve competence. Once the child grasps this concept, a rotation of enticing activities ensures practice continues.