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An Introduction to Elementary Movements
Receiving your children
The infant arrives in the Children’s Home having already seen the Elementary Movements performed countless times at home by her family, but performed inconsistently, hurriedly and whilst many other activities are happening. The performance of Elementary Movements by the Directress gives the opportunity for the infant to watch precisely what is happening, perfect the movements for herself and in doing so develop self mastery and adaption to her environment. The Elementary Movements help to rectify any under exposure the infant may have suffer from in the family home due to a lack of freedom, involvement in family life or criticism.
All elements of Practical Life; Grace and Courtesy, Care for the Environment and Care for Oneself require the performance of complex tasks. To build an infants co-ordination, confidence and for her to orient herself to this way of learning preliminary or Elementary Movements are given. The Elementary Movements are prerequisite movements which the child needs to know already and be able to perform competently so as not to be overwhelmed by the amount of details in a presentation, for example the child must know how to carry a bucket before she can be shown how to clean the floor with a cloth, or how to put down a mat before she can learn how to clean shoes.
The Elementary Activities can be delivered to a new student or a small group of new students in the first few days, perhaps for thirty minutes each day of school alongside group activities and games such as learning and singing songs, completing puzzles and beed threading. Or they can be delivered as group presentations to a whole new class of ten children, with different presentations being given in corresponding corners of the Children’s Home.
Each activity is continuously given by the Directress as an indirect presentation, silently and discreetly. Once it is known well to the child she performs this as a part of more complex presentations to be given later. After two weeks of successfully completing an Elementary Movement it can be joined to other movements, part of the new movement will be comfortable and familiar to her, she realises that she has the ability to learn and increasing complexity is necessary to galvanise the child’s attention and keep her moving forward.