Practical Life Materials

These activities are the first “work exercises” to which a child will be introduced to within the Montessori curriculum. 

We invite the child to perform various exercises such as sweeping, pouring, carrying, sorting and transferring. Through these activities they develop their concentration, attention to detail and good working habits, together with refining both their gross and fine motor skills. Many of the Practical Life Activities also prepare the child for later pencil work by fostering an anti-clockwise, left to right and top to bottom movement they are preparing for reading and writing.

These Practical Life activities promote care of the self, care of others and care of the environment and are therefore the perfect way to demonstrate how to encourage children to be healthy, safe, aware of their own needs and the needs of others. They also elucidate how, in the Montessori environment children and teachers work together to maintain a safe and healthy classroom. 

Activities such as ‘dressing frames’ help to develop the children’s independence in dressing, while pouring activities help develop skills needed to access water, therefore managing each child’s wants and needs.