20 months Practical Life

The Montessori Payoff

I wanted to write a post to record a special moment that happened in our house the other night. 

L has been helping in the kitchen since she was a toddler and has been a Montessori child almost from the start.  Sometimes it has been supremely challenging and exhausting allowing and including her in everyday events such as cooking dinner.  Granted she does not always help. Sometimes she just plain doesn't want to and sometimes I'm just way too tired and don't have the patience but for the most part she does something.

Over the past year I have tried to give her more and more responsibility when making meals.  The other night all of the hard work and perserverence came together.

 

One of L's favourite dishes to eat and help make is soft tacos.  In the past she has grated the cheese and carrots, chopped spinach and put the tortillas on the plate.  Recently I have taught her how to use the can opener and cook the refried beans on the stove.

This specific night I was super tired and just couldn't get my but off the couch to start dinner.  I asked L to get the beans and can opener out. She yelled at me from the kitchen that she's done it and I still didn't feel like getting up.  I asked her to get the carrots and cheese out of the fridge.  All I could hear was angry protests from the kitchen.  I relaxed for a few more minutes.

 

When I finally got my but off the couch and dragged it into the kitchen I was blown away.  L had opend the can and had the beans cooking on the stove.  She'd gotten out the grater and had grated all of the toppings and put them on a plate and had gotten the tortiallas ready.  In a nutshell she had made dinner for herself and her brother ALL BY HERSELF without being asked.  She took the initiative and just did it.

Ahhhh I was soooo proud and so was she!

Practical Life - 17 months

I'd forgotten just how wonderful this age is.  LJ wants to do everything for himself and I am trying to give him as many opportunities as I can.  I can remember L at this age being the same.  It must be so wonderful to have every experience be so new and novel and so exciting to realise you can now do so many new things by yourself!

 

Helping to prepare carrots from the garden.  LJ is scrubbing and taking his job very seriously and L is topping and tailing.  I find LJ is always much more focused when he is working with his big sis.

 

 

This used to be L's cupboard but she's now tall enough to reach everything if she uses her stool so it's been passed over to LJ.  I have set it up so he can set his own table.  On the top shelf are all of the items he needs for his table setting and the bottom shelf holds all of the aprons.  I have to admit that just like the Montessori shelves I only allow access to this cupboard at meal times and keep it closed with an elastic the rest of the time or he'd be in there constantly.

 

LJ loves to be one of the family and put his dirty dishes in the dish washer then push the drawer in and close the door.

 Now that Sweetpea is not with us LJ eats all of his meals at the big table with me or the family.  He is still able to set his table.  He brings over the items and at the moment I arrange them for him but soon I will introduce a place mat that he can put his setting on.

 

I got this super cute little laundry basket for LJ's room.  He can carry it himself when it is empty and he's been putting his dirty clothes in there for a while now.  So many times when I come in to his room after his nap he is in there trying to put on all of the clothes in the basket and has probably been awake for ages!

The going out area.  I set up this special area especially for LJ in our laundry room.  He can reach the hooks to get his jacket and is able to put on and take off his own boots.  I help him with his jacket and start the zipper for him and he is able to finish pulling the zipper up or down.  Every little bit he can do himself makes him feel so proud and confident. 

I just bought the super cute stool for him to sit on but he's still not quite big enough so at the moment he is more comfortable sitting on the floor.

 

Allowing LJ the opportunity to do so many things for himself really makes him feel like a part of the family and a capable human being.  I find that the only limitations he has are from me.  These pictures represent the "ideal" or the good days.   It does take a lot of work to keep the home environment "prepared" all of the time and sometimes it just doesn't happen.   I don't always have the cupboard neatly stocked ready to go and a lot of the time Daddy will get LJ ready for bed and all of the dirty clothes will be left in a pile on the bathroom floor(and cloth diaper for that matter!). 

 I think the important thing is to be aware of  our little persons needs and capabilities and try our best to let them experience that feeling of being able to "do it themselves" even if it isn't all of the time.



Toddler Practical Life-Pita Pizzas!

Tonight LJ and L made their own pita pizzas for dinner.   It reminded me of when L used to make her own pita pizza. Seems like ages ago. This was the first time LJ has done this and I was amazed at how well he caught on and the lack of mess.

 I had L set up a little table in the middle of the kitchen.  It is the perfect height for LJ to stand and L to sit at.  I prepared all of the toppings ahead of time and put them in little bowls. 

 

 

Cleaning up after.  My little guy loves wiping so much that he kept on going wiping down his chair the oven and the cabinets.

 

LJ's first pita pizza.  A little Master Chef in the making I think!

Yummy Kale Chips-a family affair

We have an over abundance of kale in our garden so we decided to make some yummy kale chips.

L and Granny picked the kale and L washed and tore it into bite size pieces. 

 

Baby J helped to wash.

Spinning the kale together.

 

Adding the dressing.  This was L's least favourite bit.

I put them in the dehydrator for several hours and the result was lovely zingy kale chips.

There are tons of different recipes around the Internet.  We used this one from Soma Studio.  They ended up being really tangy.  

Baking with Babies

Okay I guess at 14 months Sweetpea is technically a toddler but Baby J did help out with this and it just sounds so much cuter!

 

On Friday we made gingerbread cookies.  While Baby J was napping in the morning Sweetpea and I made the dough.  Once again I brought the highchair up to the counter.  I sooo wish I had that Learning Tower.  Anyhow we made it work.  She helped me to pour the dry ingredients into the bowl and stir them up.  Quite a bit ended up on the floor and some on her face which made for some really cute photos.

Next we moved on to the wet ingredients.  I measured everything out on the counter and then moved the bowl to her table to let her stir and put things in.  She was super good at the stirring! 

After it was all mixed together Sweetpea got to explore the new texture and of course sample it!!

 Wiping up her table.  Sweetpea is not a huge fan of using her cloth to wipe up after meals, however she seemed to really enjoy using the sponge here.

 

 We put the dough in the freezer, waited for Baby J to wake up and had lunch.

After lunch it was time to make the cookies.  I had them sit at their table and gave them each a bit of dough.  I just have one little rolling pin so I took turns showing them how to roll.  The pic looks good here but neither of them totally grasped the concept and kept wanting to hold onto the middle bit.

 I helped Sweetpea to push the cookie cutter into the dough and she pulled it out.

 The pictures make it look all calm and like they are proper little bakers but the whole thing lasted less than five minutes and it was of course mostly for exploring.  I let them explore with the dough and utensils while demonstrating how to use them until they both ended up just eating it.  That's when I knew to call it a day.  I put the finished products into the oven and Sweetpea brought a batch of her first cookies home to Mommy and Daddy. 

 

Over the weekend I made up a treasure basket of all of the things we used in the baking process.  On Monday when Sweetpea discovered the basket she kept coming into the kitchen and showing me each of the items with great delight!  It was like she was trying to say to me "Hey I know what this is for!!"

 

I just want to put a disclaimer here to say that of course although this was tons of fun it was also super messy and took lots of patience on my part.  I really prepared myself ahead of time to focus on the process and not the product.  Sweetpea is also a very calm, appeasing little girl and does not throw things or mess about with them which makes doing things like this much easier.  I'm sure it with be a whole different experience with Baby J!!

 

I have linked this post to Montessori Monday over at Living Montessori Now.  Press the link to check out other Montessori activites.



Sweetpea 14 months (Practical Life)

Sweetpea will be fifteen months in a few days so I thought I'd do an update on what she's been doing at 14 months.  In the last couple of weeks she's taken a huge leap in comprehension and although she is not saying a lot she is certainly understanding a great deal.

 

As far as works on the shelves Sweetpea is in what I call the "cross contamination stage".  Meaning she has absolutely no interest in doing the work however she loves to take pieces from the works and walk around with them then drop them when she finds something else that looks more interesting.  We are ending up with things scattered all across the house.  We have been working on doing a general tidy up before meals which is working well.  She will generally help to put things back into baskets and we are working on her remembering which baskets contain which items.  For example if she finds an animal in the kitchen she will need to make the connection that it has to go back to the animal basket by the pottys.

 

So not being interested in the shelf work we are focusing on practical life work at the moment.  Sweetpea LOVES food so it is only natural that most of our work is centred around food.

I have put out a basket on the shelf which contains her place mat and bib.  Just before a meal or snack I will let her know it is time to eat and ask her to get her place mat please.  It only took one demonstration for her to catch on and now she will bring them both over for every meal.  She was also most times dropping the basket on the floor when she got out her place mat.  I let it go the first few times as I wanted her to focus on just getting what she needed and putting it on the table.  Once she had mastered that I asked her if she could put her basket on the shelf.  Of course she didn't know what I meant so I went over and slowly replaced it on the shelf.  The next meal when getting her things she dropped the basket and low and behold she replaced it herself without me saying a word! She now will put the basket back every time.

 

 

She has mastered these skills now so I will be adding another step very soon.  I am also planning on  making bibs the children can put on and off themselves..

 

A super fun activity that Sweetpea cottoned on to super quick is peeling her own banana for snack.  I saw this idea on How We Montessori .  The banana is cut into pieces and I have cut down the length of the peel.  Sweetpea just rolls the banana out and puts the peel into the bowl provided.  How cool is that??

 

Sweetpea has also been helping with food preparation in the kitchen.  At the moment it is easiest for me if I put her in the highchair but I would love if my husband could make a Learning Tower for the children.

Here she is helping to wash the green beans.  The object is to wash the beans in the water and then put them in the bowl, however washing is just way to much fun and the clean beans were washed several times.

Washing the kale for the soup.  I love how she gets to experience the different textures.  She wasn't a huge fan of the kale and kept tyring to deposit it off the side of the highchair.

I also introduced her to scrubbing a potato with a little scrub brush but it wasn't a hit so we will try again another time with a carrot maybe.

 

Since Sweetpea has pretty much mastered eating her own food with a spoon, eating finger food from a side plate and returning it when using the spoon and drinking from a glass the next step is using a fork.  She practises at snack time.  Most times she will try and stab the food and I will help her to apply the pressure needed to get the food onto the fork however in this pic she successfully had a go at it on her own.

 

Usually Sweetpea and I are able to work in the kitchen in the morning while Baby J is napping and we are both enjoying doing practical life activities together!

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!

Making Lunch

L has been asking to make her own lunch lately.  She asked if I could give her a shelf in the fridge to be able to access her own things.  So here it is.  Luckily she has basically the same things every day for lunch so it was easy.

The staples are usually baby carrots, cucumber, baby tomatoes and pita bread.  We also switch it up with pea pods, cheese, eggs, muffins and hummus sometimes.

L gets out all of her lunch food from the fridge and puts it on the counter.  She then gets her stool and a plate from her cupboard and gets to work.

Don't forget the clean up and putting the food back into the fridge.  L clears her plate into the green bin and puts it in the dishwasher(hopefully!).

I've also set up a bit of a snack shelf in the pantry where L can get her porridge oats, cranberries and container of Heritage O's, coconut and cranberries which she can scoop into the smaller dish.  She also has yogurt and cheese in the side shelf of the fridge and a fruit bowl on the kitchen table.
L's is beside herself with pleasure at being able to make her own lunch.  What an independent girl!

Cleaning up the garden

I don't know if it's having a child at the right age, all of the Waldorf blogs I've read or living here but this is the first year that I've actually sat back and marveled at the absolute beauty of the changing seasons. 

I noticed all of the buds, bulbs sprouting up, birds, bees and insects of spring. 

The lovely warm weather, smell of fresh cut grass and lush green leaves of summer and now the gorgeous canvas of golds, reds, oranges and yellow that fall has given us.

We have been anticipating the raking up of all the fallen leaves and it was finally dry enough to get outside and rake!!

 L really enjoyed helping with every step

 with a little bit of fun along the way!

We even made a lovely elf leaf crown like the ones from Twig and Toadstool although the leaves were so wet it didn't last long!

This is the first year I'm actually looking forward to the delights that the winter season will bring!