CASA (Pre-Elementary)
- Practice Life Exercises
Practical life exercises are designed to teach children life skills. Children are instinctively drawn to want to carry out the activities that they see adults performing, and Dr. Montessori saw that it would be possible for the child to do this in a specially prepared environment where he would be free to do such things as polishing, washing-up, or sweeping as often as he wanted, and for as long as he wanted.
In the prepared environment all the utensils and furniture would be of the right proportions for the child, so that he could use them efficiently and effectively, for you know yourself that any job is much more easily done with tools that are the right size for you.
This was a far more revolutionary idea at the beginning of this century than it is today, when much more attention is given to providing children with toy equipment to enable them to do some practical life exercises.
The fundamental feature of the practical life exercises in the Montessori Method, however, is that the activity has to be real, never a game or make-believe.
Exercises Of Practical Life
The Main Objectives For Including Exercises Of Practical Life In The Curriculum Are To Develop The Child’s:
1. Independence
Through the Exercises of Practical Life, the child learns the skills which enable him to become an independent being. From birth, the child is striving for independence, and the concerned adults, parents, and teachers should help him on this path by showing him the skills he needs to achieve this end. Having been shown a skill, he then needs freedom to practice and perfect it.
.2. Concentration
As the child becomes absorbed in an interesting activity, he develops concentration. If the activity is appropriate, i.e., meets a need, it will be interesting for the child. The longer the child is absorbed by an activity, the better for the development of concentration.
3. Co-ordination
Through activity, the child learns to control his movements. The Exercises of Practical Life provide opportunities for the development of both gross motor and fine motor movements.
4. Self-esteem
As the child performs and completes Practical Life exercises, he develops an awareness of his value to the group, and so self-respect and self-esteem develop.
5. Social Awareness
Through the exercise of control of the environment, the child soon learns that the useful activities he is carrying out are not only for his benefit but also for the group as a whole. Furthermore, many of the activities have to be done with the co-operation of other children, and so the child learns to mix with and help others.
6. Orderliness in the Classroom
The child learns to keep the environment in a clean and ordered way, putting everything away in its right place. He is taught to approach each new task in an ordered way, carry it out carefully, and complete it. Then he is taught how to clean up and put everything away. This encourages logical thinking. The tasks are therefore beneficial to the child as an individual but at the same time, the group’s benefits as well.
7. Intellectual Development
Through the Exercises of Practical Life, the child learns about his immediate environment. He learns about the limits and possibilities of the material world. He learns how to adapt to the environment and how to be creative in it.
Sensorial Apparatuses
Objectives and Goals
By means of the Sensorial Materials in the environment the child is able to teach himself to distinguish and classify. These exercises represent the attributes of things: dimensions, forms, colors, smoothness or roughness of surface, weight, temperature, flavor, noise, sounds.
Materials are arranged in graduated series for the establishment of order. The child is able to focus his mind on a particular physical quality and to classify it. In sharpening the different senses the child becomes extremely observant of his environment.
Built into these materials is a control of error. The child therefore is able to teach himself. He proceeds to correct any mistakes by himself. This self-correction leads him to concentrate his attention on the differences of dimensions and to compare the various pieces.
A. Visual Sense
. 1. Discrimination of dimension
- Pink tower
- Brown stairs
- Red rods
- Cylinder blocks
- Knobless cylinders
2. Discrimination of colors
- Color box I, II, III
3. Discrimination of forms
- Geometric cabinets/cards
- Geometric solids/bases
- Binomial cube
- Trinomial cube
- Constructive triangles
B. Tactile Sense
1. Rough and smooth boards
2. Touch tables
3. Fabric boxes
C. Stereognostic Sense
.
. 1. Mystery bag
. 2. Progressive exercise
D. Baric Sense
. 1. Baric tablets
E. Thermic Sense
. 1. Thermic bottles
. 2. Thermic tablets
F. Auditory Sense
. 1. Sound boxes
. 2. Musical instruments
G. Olfactory Sense
. 1. Smelling bottles
H. Gustatory Sense
. 1. Gustatory tasting bottlesLanguage Program
Language has four main aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Listening and reading are related, and both are a means of sharing other people’s thoughts. Speaking and writing are both means of self-expression.
In the Montessori Method of education reading is taught by the ‘phonetic’ method. ‘Phonetic’ means ‘by sound’ and our whole system for teaching reading is based on teaching the child the words made by each letter of the alphabet.
This is done first of all by a piece of apparatus called ‘the sandpaper letters’. We use the sandpaper letters when we are presenting one sound or each letter. Later we teach one sound for groups of two or more letters. These groups, called ‘phonograms’, are presented separately to the child.
Mathematics
Number Work - The Montessori apparatus for teaching the child concepts of number is true to the principles underlying all the Montessori material. The child builds his knowledge on what he already knows, and systematic progress is made from the concrete towards the abstract.
This is particularly important for the effective acquisition of an understanding of mathematical concepts. Traditional teaching methods tend only to teach how to manipulate numbers and formulae to arrive at correct answers in the abstract without ensuring that the children internalise the concepts and patterns that govern how the numbers behave.
As a result adults are often intimidated by work with numbers, and are stumped when faced with problems for which they cannot remember the solution they once learned by rote. Their capacity for thinking freely in a mathematical way has been severely limited by the inadequacies of their own mathematical education.
By allowing the child to discover patterns and rules for himself through handling the apparatus, and progressing gradually from the manipulation of concrete objects to the symbolic representation of number on paper, the Montessori method lays the foundation for a more comprehensive and perceptive awareness of the relevance of number in our environment and leads to a true enjoyment of Maths.Cultural Arts
Montessori continually emphasised the importance of presenting to the child a whole view of the world. She repeatedly stressed the inter-relatedness of everything in the natural world, and saw man’s role as the protector of the natural world in which he lives, as well as an integral part of it. She was an early proponent of a one world viewpoint, and used Froebel’s term ‘the Cosmic PLan’ to explain how this approach influenced her Method.
Cultural subjects, in Montessori terms, are the areas of knowledge which enrich the child’s understanding of all aspects of the world he lives in, and under this heading are included the various branches of science, history, geography, music, art, craft - any subject, in fact, which may enrich the mind of the child.
Montessori, however, expected that the prepared environment would provide the child with the stimuli and the opportunity to explore any aspect of these areas of knowledge that appealed to him, and it is the responsibility of the Montessori teacher to facilitate the child’s absorption of knowledge in such a way that he acquires a truly global perspective.