In our classroom our children practice skills with practical life activities.

We have a
shelf with Montessori practical life activities, e.g. pouring, spooning, transferring,
using a pair of tongs. The most important practical life activities our children do is
prepare morning tea. Where they use real sharp knife to slice fruit, make orange
juice, peel and slice boiled eggs. The first time one parent saw her child with a
sharp knife, she was horrified and said, How could you let the children use a sharp
knife? But if you never let them use it how do you think they will learn?
Arrsalan shows his keen interest with prepare morning tea, and he enjoys so much
doing this work. Before I let him use the knife I showed him that one side of the
knife is sharp, the sharp side looks a bit curvy, and the other side is not that sharp.
Arrsalan knows we should not touch the sharp side and make sure that our fingers
do not go under the sharp end. In the pictures we can see how Arrsalan is slicing
an apple pushing from the top of the knife and slicing an orange holding very
carefully, how much he is enjoying slicing eggs and putting the slices on a serving
plate using a pair of tong.
Learning happening here-
With all these activities Arrsalan is:
Learning to use a sharp knife,
Learning to use an egg slicer and a pair of
tongs,
Developing hand-eye co-ordination
Increasing independence, self esteem,
Improving concentration,
Most of all he is enjoying doing the work.
Whatss next?
we will make that Arrsalan was given enough challenging work to improve his skills
further.
Written by- Teacher Rosy. 20 August, 2014