The practical life area of our classroom is Montessori- inspired and usually bustling with activity! Its’ purpose is to provide a space for children to enhance their sense of order, functional independence, self-confidence, and responsibility. A big reason children are inspired by these activities is because they are attracted to tools and materials that adults use. All of the practical life materials are child-sized, functional, beautiful, and primarily made of natural materials. The main areas of practical life are to control and control of movement, care of self, and care of the environment.

Control and Coordination of Movement

Some of the ways children build control and coordination of movement are: carrying a tray, carrying a pitcher filled with water, tweezing, pouring, and other fine motor activities. Below are pictures from a project that included fine motor movement, scientific thinking, and artistic expression. It is a salt, glue, and water color project on cardboard.

Care of Self

Caring for self and building independence is one of the primary goals in early childhood learning. The children enjoy a self-serve snack each morning where they look at a menu and portion chart showing them what and how much they can serve themselves. They love having agency in this part of their day.

Throughout the year, we provide opportunities for food preparation and cooking. Two food related items currently on the shelves are tweezing corn and coffee grinding. We support the children with attention to detail when hand washing, wiping one’s nose, and when doing dressing frames that include buttoning, zipping, snapping, and more.

Care of the Environment (Indoor and Outdoor)

Taking care of the classroom together builds community and social cohesion. There are multiple brooms, dusters, mops, and cloths to keep our clean tidy and in order.  The children are responsible for cleaning up an activity before choosing a new one. After lunch, children sweep up any food spilled and sponge their table before setting up their nap bed. If there is a spill, there are always many helping hands to clean it up. Some projects that the children have gotten lessons on are flower arranging, sweeping, dusting leaves of plant, and window washing. They also participate in taking care of our patio and side yard.

Seasonal Activities

A few weeks ago we went on a leaf walk down Francisco to Milvia street.  We collected a large basket of leaves and tried to identify what trees they’d fallen from. This resulted in a burst of enthusiasm for our botany cabinet which contains a variety of wooden leaf shapes.

A big thanks to all the parents who donated pumpkins last week! We are using them to play pumpkin hide and seek in the classroom and pumpkin patch in the block area. We have a few special projects planned for the larger donated pumpkins a bit closer to Halloween. We hope you can join us at 9:30 for a Halloween parade around the burn and spooky sing-along with Chrissy.