I've been reading about the Montessori method of teaching lately, in addition to other types of education. While I don't think we'll end up sending Chase to a Montessori school, there are certain concepts about the approach that I want to infuse at home. One philosophy is the idea of providing opportunities to allow your child to learn and practice (through repetition) doing daily living activities and introducing these activities to your child in an interesting way.
I found a cute mini dust pan and brush at a local Japanese store and decided to try my first Practical Life exercise with Chase. He was excited the moment he saw me coming into the living room with the tray and got even more excited when he saw what was on top of it. It's all about presentation folks. ;)
The idea is for him to pour the gems from the tupperware onto the tray, which makes a great sound. Then, he'll need to sweep the gems into the dustpan. Finally, he'll transfer them from the dustpan back into the tupperware.
I think this was a nice little challenge for him. It was neat for me to watch him try out different ways to hold and angle the brush in order to get the gems into the dust pan. With Montessori, when needed, you can first demonstrate how to do the activity the right way and then step back to let the child do it themself. But, Chase is very much in a stage right now where he wants to figure out and do everything on his own so there was very little listening to/watching mommy demonstrate.
The little guy did pretty well for his first go at it, don't you think? There's quite a few gems in that dustpan - great job Chasee!!!
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