1. The practical life
area provides the children with practical life activities,
which gives the child a feeling of dignity, accomplishment, and
self-confidence. The exercise of practical life are fundamental for
the child’s development because it support the tendencies and needs
of young children. The practical life area includes daily
living tasks such as pouring, polishing, sweeping, sewing, and
buttoning. To the child, these are meaningful activities that
involve caring for himself or herself, other people and the
environment. They also help children to concentrate, to expand
their attention span and to improve their hand-eye
coordination. Practical life activities are simple and can be
accomplished by each child. They offer repetitive cycle, which
helps the child establish patterns of order and sequencing.
2. The sensorial area
allows children to use their senses to learn about the world. These
materials isolate a defining quality, such as color, size, sound,
texture, or shape. They help to develop the child’s visual,
auditory, and tactile senses. Some Montessori materials, such as
geometric solids, are concrete representations of mathematical
concepts that appear in later schooling. The sensorial
materials enable the child to order, classify, seriate, and
describe sensory impressions in relation, length, width, mass,
color, etc. These are exercises in perception, observation,
fine discrimination, and classification that play a major role in
helping our children to develop their sense of logic and
concentration.
3. Language area
activities and materials increase vocabulary and conversational
skills, develop writing and reading skills, and begin an
understanding of grammar. The language materials include objects
and pictures to be named, matched, labeled, and classified to aid
vocabulary development. Textured letters allow the child to feel
and see the alphabet. Phonics and the movable alphabet lead the
child toward reading
4. The math area
provides the child with ideas for their intellectual development.
Hands on experience with math materials give children clear,
concrete impression on which to build their own
abstractions. The Montessori
math materials allows the child to internalize the concepts of
number, symbol, sequence, operations, and memorization of basic
facts. This is a concrete experience in the Montessori classroom.
Special materials such as spindle boxes and bead bars allow the
child to see what “nothing” or zero looks like, or to see that
multiplying 5x5 can be done with 5 bars of 5 beads each.
Development of the concept of the four basic mathematical
operations: addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication
through work with the Montessori Golden Bead Material.
5. In the area of
science, children are exposed to nature related
activities. Studies of plants and animals include parts of
various plants, vertebrates, habitats, and weather conditions that
support particular plants and animals, as well as the study of the
planets.
