Montessori Activities of Everyday Living Area

Montessori Activities

For everyone who is looking how to support the holistic development of your child through the activities of everyday living in the Montessori curriculum as probably most of you know Montessori curriculum has five main areas one of which is activities of everyday living also called practical life skills. Usually in the US then we have a knowledge, understanding of the world numeracy, literacy and sensorial activities of everyday living. Exactly what they are activities of everyday living the things that we do during our day why because children have seen us so many times at home doing these activities of everyday living.

They seem as pouring they've seen as cleaning they've seen as closing our jackets putting our shoes on polishing. So these are things that are already aware of and when they first start school in a Montessori environment. These are the things that they're most comfortable with. So usually two years old children 2 and half years old child when they start Montessori nursery would spend a lot of time on the activities of everyday living. I love this area not only because it prepares the child as a whole to go and move around the classroom, but also because it's very easy to incorporate at home so for everyone who is looking to incorporate a little bit of Montessori at home. That's the best place to start.

You don't have to buy materials. You don't have to do anything specific you just need to be more conscious more aware and to in a way prepare the environment with a little bit more activity there so what does it include.

Montessori Activities of Everyday Living

Montessori Activities of Everyday Living

This is everything that you can think of that supports you in your day to day life. So you can start with just involving your child in most of the activities. You do so if you float pouring and pouring candy from a charcoal jar from Geritol free glasses or two bows it includes pouring of a dry content. Not only the QuIDD mixing transferring transferring with spoon or transferring with tongs, opening and closing and different boxes, bottles, sewing scissors using cutting activities and cutting it's not only paper but also cutting fruits veggies. Preparing of the snacks, washing up, taking care of the plants taking care of a pet at home, cleaning up with different sorts of equipment either in the vacuum and then opening and closing of your job jackets Velcros of the shoes.

Polishing taking care of your glasses or the guests of mommies and daddies so every literally everything you can think of that it's care for the environment or care for yourself in the Montessori environment. Normally we have a sequencing, we start with things that are easier for the child and remove the things that are harder in your day-to-day life in your environment at home, you don't have to follow any sequencing it is just important to incorporate your child in the activities that you're working on.

What are the indirect objectives?

Indirect objective is everything that we want the child to get indirectly from the experience and the indirect objective activity is very day leading usually for within the five categories;

Developing Concentration

Montessori Activities of Everyday Living

The first is developing concentration. Concentration is huge in a Montessori world and it's actually one of the main thing that supports the child then to be able to learn more and to be able to persist through finishing connectivity and three is varied a living doing pouring transferring or anything. The child chooses to do supports the development of this type of concentration. One of the good things is that in the Mansouri environment and something which you can do at home, it's to allow the child to choose the activity that they wants to work with.

So if your child wants to help your washing or if your child wants to help you cleaning let them do it because when a child independently chooses what to do, their inner motivation, it's much higher and they're of course much more able to concentrate through repetition of the activity let's say pouring activity if they repeat it few times, which they normally do they are developing their developing proficiency first mastering which gives them self-confidence and self-esteem but also supports them in their building concentration being able to learn how to concentrate for order.

Order

The second thing is order and by order I don't only mean external order, but also the inner need of the child to feel order, in fact, according to Melissa a child bears with something called human tendencies and therefore different things that's order exactitude Gregorius name independence and or there is a big thing for children because they're not only looking for externally order.

A child normally when they play with toys you see that they put them in order they are in some sort of sequence and when you create internal order in the sense of routines, something that the child knows that it's to be expected the child feels so much more comfortable and activities everyday living allowed the child to know what falls next and allows the child to put things in order internally and externally.

Social Skills

The first thing is social skills in amongst our environment, of course, in a classroom activity every day living through grace and courtesy through helping to make snack flow serving yourself through taking care of the environment together with friends' children develop social skills, how this translates at home again grace and courtesy they role model you whether you say thank you hello whether you hug people and kiss them when you meet them whatever your cultural norm.

It's about that, but also when do you sit on the table do you hold it together do you use fork and knife so they model these things and you can spend a little bit conscious time to teach them to tell them it's not teaching, it's explaining through observation they do a lot, but also to take the time to explain to them and to show them very slowly what are some of the grace and courtesies things that you do.

Independence

Montessori Activities of Everyday Living

Next one is independence this is an innate human tendency of a child, children want to be independent everyone who has a child and the baby will know that they want to do things for themselves. They get frustrated if you don't let them off course. If you keep saying no no. And you stop them in time they'll stop looking for that. But, it's so important to allow them this human tendency to to be expressed so helping them learn how to close their jackets put their shoes on put their socks on bring their plates on have their own snack.

Washing their dishes that will have to be washed after them of course, but allowing them to do things that allow them to express independence is really, really vital for holistic development of the child so support that your children do not rush them take the time to show them, teach them how to help you with the laundry how to do different things at home and that's how they build self-esteem students and this is actually something that they're looking forward to.

Coordination Activities

The last one is coordinating activities related a living they work not only in your gross motor skills, but fine motor skills so there is a lot of pistol grip a lot of dexterity of the wrist, hand eye coordination imagine if you give a child to see, oh of course not with a knee though but with big blocks and let's say big laces or if they have to cut. For a specific line or different the exact lines or if a child needs to open or close their bottom or to polish their glasses. So it requires lots of coordination of their hands and hand-eye coordination would sorry believed that the pathway to the brain comes from via hands.

That's why in a multi-story classroom almost everything goes through the hands, including how you learn mathematics and abstract notions in mathematics. Of course, there are a lot of gross motor skills when they're moving things around or when they click with the vacuum. When they're brushing or they help individuals see how these things support. Your child focusing concentration will be needed for your child later when they are learning how to write and read that's it learning mathematics as well in activities of everyday living 

There are a lot of fractions sorting which prepares the children for mathematics later as well, for example, you can ask your child to pour in three different glasses. Oh mommy, daddy you're the siblings and these are fractions. It also supports the child with confidence because in the classroom activities very daily living is the first place where the child would stop and would be feeling that they are confident enough to go and move around the classroom. So it would prepare the child as a whole at home, they would know, okay, there are things that I can do by myself. That's good it feels good and that will allow me to explore to resolve more problems in the future.

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