Montessori School Fullerton, Orange County, CA 92833

When you walk into a Montessori Primary room you may surprised to see the three, four and five year old children working individually and completely involved in what appears to an onlooker as house work! Some are polishing brass objects, some are cutting bananas and serving their friends, then there are some little ones washing a table, or a window. In another area you might see a child buttoning and unbuttoning buttons on a frame, or tying and untying bows! Another surprising aspect you may wonder at is the complete concentration of each child and also the number of times each exercise is repeated. What is going on, shouldn’t they be reciting letters, numbers learning to read, write add and subtract?

The children are involved in “Exercises of Practical Life” which is an integral part of Montessori primary education, and serves an important purpose. The practical life exercises have four main areas:

1.       Care of the environment. These include sweeping, dusting, simple food preparation, washing clothes and dishes, and many more such activities that assist in the care of the child’s surroundings.

2.       Care of the person (for functional independence). These include all areas of personal care, such as washing hands, dressing and undressing, brushing hair and clothes, polishing shoes. Also included are dressing frames devised by Dr. Montessori which teach the child different types of fastenings which help the child to dress independent of adult help.

3.       Social relations. Grace and courtesy exercises which help the child make a connection between self and others in the environment. These are presented very early on as soon as the child comes into the room. They include how to enter a room, how to greet, how to be excused, how to move a chair, in fact all the little niceties necessary for day to day existence in harmony with others. These exercises are presented in the same precise manner and sequence as all of the other exercises, nothing is left to chance. This is the time the child has a great capacity for fixing ideas, and a great need to repeat. We couple the two to assist the child to live comfortably in his surroundings.

4.       Analysis and control of movement.  The child needs to have a control of his body if he is to perform any of the above with a degree of success. Therefore an analyzed set of movement exercises are also included in the practical life area. These include walking on the line, with variations included, and a series of silence exercises. The latter is meant to make the child aware of his body by being silent.

There are two overall functions of the practical life area:

1. They serve an introduction to a Montessori classroom.

2.  They provide a firm foundation for all of the other work the child is going to do.

The practical life exercises provide a source of satisfaction as the child feels he is participating and thus contributing to the adult world. These exercises are very powerful for two main reasons:

1.       They are very simple, not complex.

2.       They consist of simple visible movements that the child can easily follow and duplicate.

There are many purposes of the practical life area:

1.       The coordination and consolidation of movement. The young child has an urge to move, and every practical life exercise satisfies this need. There is a connection between the mind, the will and action involved in each exercise.

2.       Integration of the personality. The exercises create a unity between the mind, the will and the body. The mind receives the information, and understands what is required. The will then orders the part of the body involved to carry out the function.

3.       The exercises provide an opportunity for repetition, leading to self perfection. Children love to repeat an activity, thus perfection is achieved while the tendency for repetition is being satisfied.

4.       Functional independence. At the time of doing a work related exercise, the child does not realize that he is achieving or learning. The aim of his work is the work itself. When after several repetitions he brings the work to an end, from the child’s point of view the end is independent of external factors. However as he perfects himself through repetition, he is gaining independence, though he is not consciously aware of this fact.

5.       Sociability is learned through the grace and courtesy exercises. The child is taught basic skills that will be needed to mix with others on a social level.

6.       Adaptation. The child learns functions inherent to his culture, therefore learning to adapt to his environment. For example the spooning exercises teach a child in an American school how to use a spoon because the children use a spoon to eat. A Montessori school in China would have exercises that involve the use of chop sticks.

7.       The exercises help the child with orientation and ordering. The sequences of each exercise help the child to recognize order. The more he creates this outward order, the more internally ordered his mind gets. The simple structured sequences of each exercise, create a straight line for action, and assist the child from wandering around. It helps to create order from chaos.

8.       The various exercises of practical life satisfy the needs the child has to fit into his environment; this need is so powerful that it fully absorbs the child. This in turn develops concentration. An important function of the Montessori teacher is observation. This helps the teacher to see when the concentration is waning and channel the child to another activity.

There finally comes a time when the child is not satisfied to work at the practical exercises just as an end in itself. This is when the teacher presents motives for the activity, to do the work for the good of the group, cleaning up after lunch, serving lunch or putting items away to tidy up the room in the evening, thus helping the child to become a useful member of his little community. We must remember that in the practical life exercises the child is not play acting, not just imitating the teacher. The exercises are teaching the child to prepare for taking place in life activities, education that is a preparation for life.