Dr. Maria Montessori introduced Practical Life exercises to provide children with opportunities to perform simple tasks that they have already observed at home. Practical Life exercises enable children to care for themselves, take care of the environment, and develop respect for others.
Care of the environment activities encourage the child to interact with the environment, exhibiting respect and love. These activities help the child form a connection with their environment and find a personal responsibility towards it.
This week, we introduced one of the most beloved activities in our Montessori environments: flower arrangement. Second-year students were thrilled to observe the work, and they were ready to continue sharpening their hand skills. Our first-year students were super eager to get their hands on it. This is a beautiful activity that offers so much to your child’s development. Through this exercise, children develop a sense of beauty and the mental task of sequencing; they learn to exercise the judgment of size and capacity in matching flowers to vases and in pouring water, as well as manual dexterity as they need to fetch water and use different tools. This activity also indirectly prepares your child for botany studies in our Primary program and offers a great opportunity to work on independence and concentration. Your children love it! We can’t thank you enough for your weekly flower donations!
Another practical life lesson we introduced this week in the area of self-care was putting on a jacket. Children received a lesson using what we called the “fliparoo” trick. Children have been practicing this skill over and over. Please see the video below on the lesson, and please support your child at home to practice this skill.
On another note, as we started our pumpkin unit this week, children had the opportunity to explore the outside and inside of a pumpkin! Skin, pulp, strands, and seeds were new vocabulary words used to describe the parts of a pumpkin. We also talked about its texture, size, and color. Smooth, rough, and mushy were adjectives we repeated over and over, as well as naming the color orange. Pumpkin was also our food-tasting item this week, but as most of the children didn’t find it really tasty, we decided to find another way to introduce this fruit, so we baked pumpkin muffins with the children, and oh boy, what a difference! Children enjoyed it so much that they kept asking for more and more.
Lastly, we celebrated another birthday this week! It’s such a joy seeing the children growing healthy and loved!
Enjoy the pictures!
Mrs. Hood and Ms. Mollie
Reminder: Parent-teacher conferences are coming up. To maximize our 20 minutes together, we would greatly appreciate you emailing your questions to us prior to it. Please take some time to think about your questions and send them to ahood@fraserwoods.com by Friday, October 20th.