Practical Life in the Atrium

Exercises of Practical Life (EPL) are some of the first activities that the young child is invited to work with in the Atrium. These activities help the child feel comfortable with the Atrium by providing work that can be done from their first day in this space. The presence of these activities in the Atrium also lays a foundation for seeing the regular work of daily life as an opportunity for listening and responding to God. As St. Bonaventure said, "The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue."

Additionally, EPL...

• Assists the child as he becomes accustomed to the cycle of work: choosing a material, taking it to a work space (mat, table, chowki), removing the material from its tray, returning the tray to its precise space on the shelf, returning to the work space and enjoying the material, then going back to retrieve the tray when finished working and restoring the material to the tray and then to the shelf. So much is involved in working with such a simple activity!! 
• Provides meaningful work of the hand for the child which helps him to grow in focus and concentration by providing opportunities for coordination and precision of movement as well as repetition.
• Allows the youngest of children to work independently and also begin to care for their environment with real materials including polishing and cleaning up a spill.
• Encourages the child to grow in trust of his catechist. The EPL presentations are "short and sweet" and are given one on one to each child. This provides time for the adult and child to spend time together. The child, through a 2 minute presentation, learns to trust the catechist who says, "This is my work right now but when I have finished showing you this presentation you may work with this material for as long as you would like."
• Helps the child to gain practical skills which will be needed later on for the catechetical materials including pouring with a funnel, folding altar linens and using a key to unlock the model tabernacle.

Here is one example of an EPL shelf set for the beginning of the year. The first shelf contains "preliminary activities" which the children can be given freedom to work with even without an individual presentation. These materials are familiar to the child and serve to assist him with the first two bullet points above. The remaining materials are grouped by theme and placed in order of difficulty (left to right) with the simplest presentation on the lefthand side of the shelf.

As the year progresses, the EPL shelf will need to be shifted. While EPL is important throughout the Atrium year, the preliminary materials should be minimized or even completely removed after they have served their purpose of connecting the child to the environment.