Practical Life in the Atrium

As we begin our year together, I like to share some information about practical life in the atrium, which is so valuable but also easily misunderstood. Take a look at this post, called Why Practical Life?  to learn a bit more about how shifting beans from one bowl to another is meaningful work, and how polishing silver can be great preparation for prayer!

Meanwhile here are some photos of the practical life works we put together for the three to six year olds in the Good Shepherd Atrium this month. We always begin the year with simple works for our three year olds, and increase the difficultly as they develop their skills. Keep an eye out for the color green which points to the liturgical season - Ordinary Time or "Growing Time." We include the color of the season in our practical life whenever we can.

Moving beans from one bowl to the other develops the pincer grip.

Water is transferred from one bowl to the other using a sponge.
We place water in the left bowl, and color it green for the season.

Spooning beans into a pitcher and pouring them back into the bowl.

Sorting fruit.

Threading a card. There is a green string in the little jar.

Clipping clothes pins around the lip of the bowl. These are
new clothes pins made of bamboo and are so nice to touch!

Pushing pipe cleaners into holes.
A second step will be to add beads to the pipe cleaners.

Grasping stones with the whole hand and
shifting them from one basket to the other.

Learning to sweep up a spill.