Essential of Motoric Development in Life Skill Exercise

The Essentials of Motor Development in Practical Life By: Intan Rahmanita If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence. It must initiate them into those kinds of activities, which they can perform themselves. We must help them to learn how to walk without assistance, to run, to go up and down the stairs, to pick up fallen objects, to dress and undress, to wash themselves, to express their needs, and to attempt to satisfy their desires through their own efforts. All this is part of an education for independence. - Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, Chapter 3 page 57. From the beginning, a child will strive for independence, and the best way to help him achieve it is to show him the skill he needs to succeed. Unfortunately, parents try to help much and in wrong way. Many, for instance rather to wait patiently every day while their youngster struggles to eat breakfast, do up his button, tie his shoe lace and then end up doing these for him. Montessori built up a curriculum that called Practical Life. These are simple everyday routinely perform by adults to control and maintain the environment which they live and work.

The activities are utilitarian, and so for the adult, they have purpose and means to an end-and the end result is more important than the process. Practical life activities enable the adult to control his physical and social environment. From early age, every child watches his parents perform these every day and so he has a strong desire to copy and learn from them- it is his way of adapting the world. Unlike the adult, however, the performance of these simple daily routine is developmental and absorbing for the child; he is more interested in the process involved than in the end result.

As a writer, I’m very interested to bring up this topic due in my childhood this area for most parents not so important to be stimulated rather language and math. I still remember my first years live far apart from my parents. Where I must entered dormitory in Senior High School. I even don’t know how to sweep floor properly, folded the clothed until washed my own dress. Every tasks need lots of time and must repeated twice or more to get clean. Thus, it made me frustrated and really influences my focus on school. Something get wrong here? Why my I cannot do these simple things.

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Why fine motor, my eye-hand, my feet not well coordinate even to sweep the room. Then the answer pop in to my head, because I never do it . And It is like if I’m studying math, where when practicing make perfect. Now as a mother, I want for my daughter to have an easier life in the future whatever profession she would focus on, just like Maria Montessori said to give the child “a help to life”. Montessori stated that at each plane of development there is a sensitive period for different skills and activities. It is critical that proper stimulation be provided as nature intended.

A child enters the Children's House (Montessori preschool) around the age of three. It is here where the Work of the Family, known as Practical Life activities, provides an introduction and smooth transition to the Montessori school by linking the activities that the child is familiar with at home to the school environment. Children at this age enjoy, and even prefer, spending their time helping adults with their activities. When allowed to do so, the child learns that his contributions are of value, thus boosting his self-esteem and independence. He enjoys and should be encouraged to use child-size replicas of adult tools.

In short, the direct aim of Montessori Practical Life activities is to help develop social skills and independence. Indirectly, Practical Life activities develop fine motor skills, as well as strengthening intellect, concentration, and personal will. Four categories of practical life: a. Care of Environment Such as pouring, transferring, cleaning, and polishing. Pouring activities are common in Montessori school. Children will learn to pour beans from jug to jug complex tasks pouring exercise. These simple exercise prepared the child indirectly for mathematical complex such as volume and capacity. . Development of Motor Skill Such as opening and closing bottles, boxes, latches, padlocks, cutting with scissors, screwing and unscrewing of nut and bolts, sewing, pasting, weaving, plaiting and many more in Montessori classroom are design to help the children to improve his/her fine motor skill, eye-hand coordination and concentration. c. Care of Self Such as activities related to personal hygiene such as washing or drying hand, brushing, combing, or plaiting hair, cleaning and cutting of nails, blowing’s one nose, dressing and undressing.

In order to help children get their independence. Therefore it needs to design purposeful work, establish will and discipline. d. Social grace and courtesy Such as how to shake hands, saying please and thank you, how to interrupt someone, and how to cough and sneeze. Importance of Motor Development Motor skill definition Motor skills are the movements that use to lift, push or carry. Minds have to tell the body to connect the spatial needs of the surroundings to the muscles and bones to complete the tasks. Mastering motor skills means practicing, teaching and imitating.

It need fine motor and gross motor skills working together to create your movement. The difference between the two skills depends on your task a. Fine Motor Capability Fine motor skills entail using small muscles of the body. Writing, coordinating hand-eye movements, creating works of art, moving the eyes or lips are examples of fine motor coordination. Picking up a tiny leaf between the fingers is using the fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are using the small muscles of the body. Visual motor skills, such as putting together puzzles or using construction toys, are fine motor activities.

The hand-eye coordination, another fine motor skill, is necessary to complete any tasks using a pencil, including the ability to draw. b. Gross Motor Skills In childhood, gross motor is the first set of skills the child masters. Sitting, using his arms, legs or feet, walking and running are examples of gross motor skills. Rolling down a hill is using gross motor skills. Pushing a wagon is a gross motor skill. Using the large muscles is how gross motor skills operate. Skills that use the entire body or many parts at one time are gross motor skills. Muscle tone is an important aspect of gross motor skills.

If the body reacts too tightly, you will experience jerky or disconnected gross motor movements. If the body reacts loosely, you need more strength and the movements appear slow. The difference between gross motor skills and fine motor skills is the capability of muscle function. It need both functions to complete tasks. Reaching over to the sink to grasp a glass of water, you are using your gross motor muscles to reach. When a child actually grasp the glass, it allows the large muscles to tell the small muscles to grasp the glass. If a child is having spatial difficulties, he will not be able to grasp the glass.

If a child is having gross motor problems, it will not be able to reach out the arm. Muscle strength, flexibility and coordination determine how child can accomplish motor skills. If there is a developmental problem, that will affect how well he can complete skills. Flat feet can be the culprit for awkward walking. Skills like riding a bike, if he is having balance problems, will not work. How Motor Development encourage in Montessori Classroom. “All movement thus has a most intricate and delicate machinery. But in a man none of it is established at birth.

It has to be formed and perfected by the child’s activity in the world. It has to be formed and perfected by the child’s activity in the world. Unlike the animal, man finds him self so richly endowed with muscles that there are hardly any movements he cannot learn to make, and while he is doing this we do not talk about strengthening his muscles, but coordinating them, which is a very different thing. The point is that, in man’s case, he finds all his muscles uncoordinated, and the nervous arrangement for all movement he learns have to built up and perfected by action initiated by his mind.

In the other words, child has an internal power to bring about co-ordinations, which he thus created himself, and once these has begun to exist he goes on perfecting them by practice. He himself is clearly the one of the principle creative factors in their production” The educational value of a movement depends of finality (or end) of the movement; and it must be a such help the child to perfect something in himself; either it perfect voluntary muscular system (the flesh); or some mental capacity; or both.

Educational movement must always be activity which builds up and fortifies the personality, giving him a new power and not leaving him where he was…(Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, E. M. Standing, Chapter 13 page 233) Practical life is the first activities the child introduced to in Montessori environment, also the first Maria Montessori teach when she was on Casa the Bambini. These practices are: a. Opening and closing boxes b. Opening and closing lids jar and biscuit tins c. Opening and closing various type of doors and cupboards d. Pouring beans between two jugs, pouring water, and pouring water trough funnel. e.

Folding and unfolding clothes f. Lifting, carrying, and putting down delicate object g. Lifting, carrying, and putting down a tray with object on it h. Carrying a floor mat i. Unrolling and rolling up a floor mat j. Sitting on the edge of an unrolled mat k. Lifting, carrying, and putting down a chair l. With chair on the table, lifting it away from table, sitting on it and, getting up from it and placing it back under the table. m. Using scissor and handling scissor to someone n. Handling a book o. Handling and playing a record Present Research: Correlation of fine motor development with practical life area stimulation.

There a research by Rule and Steward (2002) that wants to find correlation between practical skill activities based on Montessori program with motor skill development especially fine motor’s children in public kindergarten schools. The experiment conducted in order to find the best way to therapy clumsy children. Based on literacy and former researcher, Rule and Steward found that children who have difficulties coordinating the small muscle group in their hands (fine motor) have difficulty dressing, feeding themselves, and manipulating pencil.

This difficulty makes children dependent on others, opens them to peer ridicule, and prevents them from the meeting the demands of school. In further studies, it found difficulties in handwriting, in art design and technology, in home economics and in practical science lesson. These children also exhibited more behavior problems and lower achievement with some exhibiting “intense of personal feeling of failure” and a worrying amount of dissatisfaction. Second, there is a moderate correlation between fine motor bility and early literary performance. Third, there is interdigital dexterity to be a strong predictor of reading achievement. Rule and Steward do an experiment in order to measure practical life material on public school kindergarten’s fine motor skill development over a 6-month period. The dependent measure was a penny post test. In the penny posting test, the number of pennies are counted that a seated child can pick up open at a time with dominant hand and place into one sloth in can within 30 seconds.

Each student was presented with 50 pennies spread on a towel and was given a practice of depositing two pennies into the sloth, then two 30 second trials. This same procedure was followed for pretest and post test. The teachers were asked to show students how to manipulate the material and complete the activities. Each box had a step by step instructions and material list. The first author demonstrated proper operation of boxes to the teachers; Teacher received six new box of material every 2 weeks throughout the study period. Student used the fine motor skill as an option during center time almost every day.

More than 50 different sets of activities were provided to experimental group (n=101). Teacher coached students in following specific steps to use tweeters, tongs, and spoons to manipulate a variety of object. Students then employed the materials during the center time in their classrooms. What happen there and what the child doing After the post test, experimental group of children were asked to comment about the materials. Most children spoke enthusiastically of the activities, commenting that the activities sparked their imaginations and challenged their motor skills.

Teacher mentioned how students enjoyed the activities because of attractive items and themes. Activities that teacher as most valuable were those incorporated cognitive skill such like finding likeness and differences, matching, and sorting or science content like learning about animals. Although experimental and control group teacher reported equal amounts of fine motor activity in the classrooms, significant interaction effects were found indicating the experimental group outperformed the control on the post test measure. An overall effect size of 0. 4 indicates that the type of fine motor activity is important in children development. Conclusion: 1. Montessori Practical Life activities help develop social skills, independence, fine motor skills, as well as strengthening intellect, concentration, and personal will. 2. Children who have difficulties coordinating the small muscle group in their hands (fine motor) have difficulty dressing, feeding themselves, and manipulating pencil 3. Research by Rule and Steward found that practical life activities increase kindergarten’s fine motor skill development. . .

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