Activity: containers & lids (small muscle activity, practical life)
Age: 21 months
Materials: tray, various containers with lids
Presentation:
Part 1: Recognition of identity.
I normally go in the room ahead of Kale and set up the activity. That gives me time to snap a picture for the title shot of the blog post and to think the activity through. When Kale comes up in the room he is always super excited to see a new activity set up (normally we don't set anything up for him - we let him choose what he'd like to work on from the shelves). Evidence of his excitement:
Part 2: Recognition of Contrasts
I had set out two glass containers, one stainless steel container, and a candle tin. Kale zeroed in on the candle right away and was pretty much convinced that it was lip chap. He tried for about ten minutes to scrape some wax out to put on his lips, before giving up and moving on to the other containers. He took all the lids off and then worked on putting each one back on. Despite my efforts to use different sized containers, a couple of the lids were interchangeable and so it probably wasn't as challenging as it could have been for him.
Part 3: Discrimination between similar objects.
Working with new materials is great because it gives us a chance to try new words. Since Kale was drawn to the candle, we worked on saying "candle" and "lemon." I tried asking him to show me the glass container vs. the tin container, but by this point he realized that the containers could hold water and so working with lids quickly turned into working with water......
I love containers and lids ... so simple yet great for a number of skills! Your tray and photos make it look very inviting as well! Thanks for linking up with Montessori Monday. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed imagining Kale trying to get the candle wax out of the container. too funny. I love the look of concentration in the second to last photo (the last photo is not showing up in my browser for some reason). He looks like he's working hard and enjoying every minute of it!
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to tell you that I've been reading up on Montessori (I bought Montessori from the Start and Teach me to do it Myself) and I've been trying some stuff out with Cole here and there. But before I even tried anything out I noticed him doing his own version of "pouring" using food he was eating. It was quite funny watching it and realizing - holy crap, he's really concentrating on getting all of those chicken strips from one container to the next! So thanks for the inspiration. I will be posting it soon in an upcoming post about Mama's "Night School."