The Practical Life activities in this section include using real food. Just as using real dishes, flatware, and other material provides a greater interest and authenticity for children, using real food in activities creates more of a sense of “real” life skills for children. These particular activities are designed as shelf materials rather than food that is intended to be eaten. With this in mind, these activities require more preparation for the teacher as the foods used will need to be replaced each day and the materials cleaned.

Many of these activities do have the potential to be combined with snack time if desired. There are more activities in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 which include utilizing Practical Life skills in creating drinks and food that the children can include in their snacks or meals. Be sure to carefully monitor the activities used here to prevent cross contamination of foods.

These particular activities, when used as shelf materials or combined with snacks and meals will require more preparation than typical shelf materials. Therefore, it is best to limit the number of these activities to only one or two on any single day.

 

Transferring Dry Food

  

 

 Materials Needed

• Medium Size Display Bowl
• Smaller Bowl or Dish
• Child Size Tongs
• Cheese Puffs
• Display Tray

Presentation and Activity:

Use the tongs to carefully pick up and transfer each cheese puff to the small bowl. The transfer of the real foods shown in this section requires an increased level of concentration and fine motor skills in order to avoid dropping or damaging the food.

In the next post, I will share more ideas for using real food for fun, fine motor skills, and increased concentration in Montessori Practical Life Activities.

You can find many more activities in the book which is available at Amazon.com. Direct links to all of the books are on the page labeled “Dr. Andrea’s Books.”