Help me to do it myself-Practical life baby!

Sweetpea is almost 14 months.   Her interests are starting to change.  She is able to walk pretty well now and likes to carry things around with her.  She is not really interested in anything on the shelves anymore but is much more interested in what I am doing.  She will follow me into the kitchen when I'm making meals or clearing up and into the bathroom when emptying the pottys.

 

I got some wonderful advice from Pilar from The Full Montessori about what to do with a 14 month old and it has been so effective.  Please head over and check out her post on 14 month practical life and the ever changing needs of an infant.  While you are there if you haven't already check out the rest of her incredibly informative blog.

 

Here at our house there have been many activities going on leading to independence.

 

Sweetpea gets her place mat and bib from a basket on the shelf and puts it on the table before she eats.  She can eat and drink totally independently and will put her spoon down while eating food from her side plate. 

 

 Now that Baby J is moving we are working on him coming to the table on his own.

Baby J can pick up, drink and put down his glass and I can now leave his bowl on the table and scoop up a bit of food for him and he will pick up the spoon and eat it.  We are still working on returning the spoon to the bowl.  We are also still working on returning his finger food to his plate when not eating it.  He is pretty rambunctious and it has been a long road to get him to not mess about with his place mat, glass and plate but for the most part after a lot of work and patience he will eat his whole meal without any major incident.

Both Sweet pea and Baby J wipe their table down after meals and snacks. 

 

 

Here is Sweetpea peeling her own boiled egg for her snack.  She was so focused on this.  She actually was putting the shells into the little bowl I provided for her but didn't realise she could eat the egg after she peeled it.  After this photo I gave her another bowl to put the edible bits in and I helped her separate them so she could enjoy her snack.

As you can imagine there was quite a significant mess on the floor when she was finished.  After I'd cleaned and swept up I invited her to help me scrub the floor.  

There was mostly dipping of the brush into the water and a tiny bit of scrubbing!

 

Helping me to make quinoa bites.  She really enjoyed stirring and also helped to pour in some of the pre-measured ingredients.  This was the first time that Sweetpea was handling food without being able to eat it right away.  She did manage to sneak a few bread crumbs out of the measuring cup!

 

 

Another cool practical life activity that I can't wait to try with her is peeling a banana.  Check out how it's done over at How We Montessori.

 

I never would have thought to introduce some of these activities so young however they were all a huge hit!  Thanks Pilar for sharing your wisdom!