Practical Life Play – Pouring Afternoon Tea

One afternoon Luath spied the tea set that we have used for play and asked if we could have tea.  We were enjoying our pretend drinking and pouring when I thought we could fill the teapot with liquid.  Luath does do a lot of water play, mainly in the swimming pool or bath.  This week she tried to fill a small vase from a water jug.  She missed completely.  On the third go she was getting closer.

I placed the tea set along with a water (cold) jug on an upturned box lid to contain any spillage.  We had some used teabags awaiting composting so I placed these on a plate.  I put the teabags in the teapot and poured some water in.  I demonstrated the first pour and then replaced the teapot on the tray.
   
Luath immediately said I had forgotten to remove the lid of the teapot.  “Silly me” as Luath would say.  She loved the real pouring and could actually fill the small cups well and could stop before they overflowed.

She did miss sometimes, although I think not necessary always by mistake as she filled a few saucers.
 
I brought a cloth and sponge for cleaning up.  She had fun soaking up the tea on the sponge and then squeezing it back into the water jug.

Along with the act of pouring, pretend drinking and eating.  We talked about the tea bags changing the water from clear to lightly coloured and finally a dark brown.  We also talked about cups overflowing when filled to the top.
(Luath is 26 months)
Shared at Living Montessori Now

Practical Life –Transfers/scooping in our everyday life

Transfers features often in Montessori tray set ups. Montessori at Home by John Bowman has a great breakdown of the progression through transfers that leads to the correct grip for writing. Also if you set the activity with left to right movement then it while be in the direction we read (although at the moment we do some activities right to left). I do have a plan to retry some trays with Luath but I noticed how often Luath does transfers in our day to day life and how easy it is to alter tasks slightly do allow her the opportunity to do so and work on various grips.
Food Preparation
 
Feeding the birds

Helping prepare the dog’s dinner

Playing with moon sand and a rice sensory tub
  
Helping fill bean(rice)bags
 
Play set ups - Scooping for ice fish, putting black (bean)birds into a pie, placing money into a piggy bank.
    
(Luath was 25 months)

Practical Life – Fun & Learning while flat pack building

   
Recently we have bought a few new pieces of furniture.  It is quite a treat to have proper new and not just new to us.  However that has meant some furniture building.  Luath has been loving helping, in fact she is getting so good she has started to disassemble her easel.  It takes longer with a toddler but there are so many learning opportunities, even assembling a fairly simple object.  It was actually the most relaxing time I have spent with flat packs.
Reading instructions
As the instructions are mostly illustrations it was fun to ask Luath what she thought each bit meant.  She loved the men characters.

Matching pieces and Counting
Most of the fixing parts of the furniture were real size on the instructions which is perfect for matching.  Once we had found the matches then counting to make sure we had the correct amount of each part.

Sizing objects – which is bigger
 
Fine control
Lots of fine control in the preparation and in the furniture construction,  including picking up and inserting dowels or screws and pushing in screw covers.

Various grips while using screwdrivers and allen keys
   
Working in various positions – sitting, kneeling, standing.  Helping to hold, carry objects.

Luath is especially proud that she helped assemble two small drawer units for her Grandparents to use when they next visit.

(Luath is 26 months)
Shared at Living Montessori Now