Practical Life in Lower Elementary Montessori
In Montessori environments, it is very common for Early Childhood classrooms to have whole practical life shelves that they students can pick from to work on different skills. Activities could include things with the different seasons or holidays in the month, moving objects from one bowl to another, pouring, tweezing, cleaning, polishing, zipping, buttoning, washing, pin punching, and many other activities that lead to practical life skills. As the students get older, they are expected to complete more “challenging” work, so when they get to the Lower Elementary, the practical life shelf goes away and it becomes part of their daily activities, without being called practical life.
My plan for next year is to bring back the practical life shelf into the Lower Elementary Classroom. When we visit the Early Childhood classrooms in my school, I observe that my students really have an interest in those activities. I am going to think of activities for this shelf that are more beneficial for Lower Elementary students.
Here are some ways that I currently do practical life in my Lower Elementary Classroom.
We make layer juice popsicles! This is probably the most exciting practical life, as the students really enjoy it! I talk about it more in the video down below.
I set up a store for the students to be able to make change-I bring in a real cash register and everything. It is a very cool experience.
We make a sock animal every year as a keepsake to represent the year, I also talk about it more in the video.
During different holiday celebrations, I like the students to make either own snacks and they use the proper kitchen tools in order to do so.