This transferring Practical Life Activity is perfect for toddlers or preschoolers who have mastered hand and spoon transferring as this activity is a little more 📈challenging. Use a stainless steel picker-plucker (buy here) for plucking olives, 🍇 grapes, 🍒cherries, dry 🍝pasta or any other food big enough to be plucked.
One of the aspects of Montessori prepared environment, which is meticulously designed to meet the needs of the child both physically and emotionally, includes Practical Life activities. Many such activities are tasks a child sees routinely performed at home. They each serve a meaningful purpose as the child masters essential tasks such as food preparation, pouring a drink, tying of the shoes, sweeping, sewing and many more.
Through Practical Life activities, a child also develops and refines social skills, which build self-esteem, determination, and independence. "Through practical life exercises … children develop a true ‘social feeling,’ for they are working in the environment of the community in which they live” (5, pg. 97). Maria Montessori explains in The Discovery of the Child.
Additionally, fine motor skills are improved through the use of Practical Life materials since by virtue of repetition, a child refines coordination and concentration, and thus develops independence, which leads to the inevitable growth of child’s sense of self-worth.
"I can do it myself!" is the premise on which Practical Life Activities are pivoted, and although, appearing quite simple and repetitive, practical life activities are highly purposeful since a child engaged in them demonstrates high levels of concentration, sense of order, and refinement of fine motor skills.
Demonstrate how to properly hold and squeeze the plucker.
Picking an olive requires coordination of small muscles in the hands and precision.
"Pick one – eat one!" Both Julia and Adrian love olives!
You can also use dried pasta or any other food big enough to be plucked.
Practical life skills are an essential component of Montessori education as they provide a foundation for the life-long love of learning while teaching a child independence through caring for oneself and the environment.
For more on plucking, see here Adrian pitting cherries in a video post "🍒Cherry Pitting • Practical Life 🙌 Activities 101🎥 Series 🎇.
4 Comments
Great activity idea for at home – it teaches independence and refines some of their skills while learning on their own. Thanks for sharing! I also found some interesting points about Montessori being more of a science than a daycare for kids at school in a post here http://www.charlotteprep.org/academics/montessoridaycare.cfm where it also explains that the love of learning while being independent is what’s important for the child in this method.
Hi Jessica, thank you for your comment and for the link. You have summed it up so eloquently! Yes, it is true indeed. If children are interested in what they do, they will love it & they will naturally love the learning process – following the child is so important 🙂 Anya
Really this is a great activity for the kids to develop their mind. It helps to boost the brain of a kid from the childhood. It is a background which advocates in the first place the development of the child himself.I also prefer this type of Montessori activities for my little daughter. I order a variety of toys from “Kidadvance Montessori”. It became easier for me to teach her.
Thank you, and I am so glad you have been enjoying Practical Life activities as they form a basis for all other future Montessori activities 🙂 Anya