showeredwithgrace

This week's Unplugged Project :  Clothes

   

      

 

My dh was able to fix the grinder and Rose Red has been having a great time grinding up wheat this week.  I was amazed at how well the old coffee grinder worked for this.  We'll have to run it all through again to make it a bit finer though.  It is difficult for Rose Red to grind up by herself.  She only gets a few turns of the crank in at a time before she needs a break but I have to say she loves the challenge and keeps going back at it!

Look whose busy cleaning today.  By the looks of it she means business (she even put her apron on) !

Mommy loves having a helper at home.  Cleaning the refrigerator is fun work when you have a "big 'elper" working by your side.

A little practical life.

Rose Red enjoys washing the windows ~ and it's only fair as all the handprints are her own!  This is a little more practical life we are incorporating into our week ~ made a little sweeter with the help of her big brother.

We have been listening to this CD  a lot lately at our home.  It came with a resource book with all the words and music for the songs.  The set is titled 'This is the Way We Wash-a-Day'  ~ "inspiration for work and play to sing throughout the day".  Rose Red loves it and the musician's voice is so lovely even my husband likes to listen to it!  It is filled with all those classic great songs for singing while taking care of your duties around the home.

We have been working on our coordination and concentration skills with this practical life work ~ pouring water from one cruet to another.

 

When we get nice things we have a responsibility to care well for them don't you think?  How fortunate that grandad makes Rose Red lovely wooden toys that we can care for beautifully with a little wood cleaner/polish and take the time to remember with gratitude the gifts we have been given.  Thanks grandad!

Isn't it wonderful when cleaning up is still great fun for them?!  Rose Red loves wearing her little apron and sweeping up!  Wearing the apron serves to help 'focus' the activity ~ maybe mommy should wear her apron more often!

"(Maria) Montessori recognized that meaningful learning requires a willingness to follow each successive step in the process of acquiring new information.  It is essential to repeat each one of those steps as many times as necessary to know and to understand the specific learning involved on the deepest level.  To complete such a cycle of activity requires a 'depth of engagement' on the child's part.  It is just this engagement of the whole personality that is necessary to all meaningful learning throughout life.  .  .  Montessori suggests that the appropriate time to address the challenge of engagement is when the child first achieves independent action at approximately fifteen to eighteen months old.  What the child now needs is 'work with structured materials' that follows his natural interest in completing cycles of activity and in imitating the adults in his environment."

*excerpt from 'Montessori from the Start' ~ The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen

This is a "cycle of activity" that Rose Red can't get enough of!

.  .  .  For 'this new kind of play,' as montessori called it, toys will not do.  The child needs items that are real and relate directly to the adult's everyday activities.  Montessori called these items the practical-life materials.  .  .  .  The exercises of practical life should involve manual activities that the child sees adults engaged in on a regular basis in daily life.  Therefore, parents select from among their occupations the ones that 'they have to do anyway in their everyday life,' and by doing so, parents avoid the feeling of pressure to do even more for their child than they have hitherto been doing.   They are simply including their child, according to his interests and capability, and as time allows, in setting and clearing the table, unloading groceries, preparing food, baking pouring water and juice, wiping the table, washing dishes, sorting and folding laundry, putting away clothes, dusting, sweeping and mopping, washing a mirror or window, polishing a vase or shoe, picking up a room, emptying wastepaper baskets, watering plants inside or outside, and arranging flowers.  When the child is somewhat older, this may even include ironing, sewing, weeding  the garden, and raking leaves."

*excerpt from 'Montessori from the Start ~ The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen