Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Practical Life Exercises for the Easter Season!

Here is a quick look at the new practical life works in the Good Shepherd Atrium this Easter! To learn more about why we do practical life in the atrium, read Why Practical Life?

A listening exercise - there are six sets of eggs (one blue and one yellow per set) and each set makes a distinct sound. The sounds come from the things we've put inside the eggs (such as rice, beans, a paper clip, rock etc.). Children listen and compare the sounds to find the matches and place them in the egg carton. I saw this great idea on Living Montessori Now.

A squeezing exercise. Children use the pitcher to pour water into the bowl and add the sponges to the water. Then they use the tea bag squeezer to squeeze the water out of each sponge and return it to the shell-shaped dish. After removing all of the sponges, children empty the water.

Using an eye dropper - Children fill the small pads on the soap holder using the eye dropper. When they are finished they use the dropper to remove the water and put it back into the bottle.

Nuts and bolts - Children match and attach the proper nut to the proper bolt on the gray mat, then return the nuts and bolts to their containers. We actually only put out three sets of nuts and bolts to begin this work. We will add the additional ones in a week or so to make the work more difficult.

A spooning exercise - Children use a small ladle to fill the butterfly with translucent marbles, then return the marbles to the pink dish. The butterfly is pretty, isn't it?

Children sort the flowers and use tweezers to place them into this piece of packaging I found along the way. The holes on the top row have a colored dot in them to indicate which color belongs in that row. When finished children return the flowers to the silver dish.

I love practical life!

5 comments:

  1. Reece specifically mentioned that one of the Atrium works has "nuts" in it, when I was unscrewing some screws at home. Now I can put him to work around the house!

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  2. @Lynette I love that boy! I thought he might like nuts and bolts! Such an easy work to put together but I've been thinking about it forever!

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  3. Leslie,
    Feed back on the new practical life works. The boys were interested in the nuts and bolts. The girls seemed to be more interested in the egg shakers and both were interested in squeezing the sponges. I was very thankful that you put out new and interesting work for the children.

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  4. I love how you choose the practical life materials according to the season. I know your children will look back on their childhood church experiences as a big highlight in their lives.

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  5. What lovely and appealing activities you've prepared, Leslie! The seasonal quality adds a lot of interest as well. And thanks for linking to my blog! :) Deb @ LivingMontessoriNow.com

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