Self Help Skills in Montessori

Video Transcript

"This is everyday living at Northstar Montessori Preschool. Children of all ages in this school come into this particular area. We hope that most of the children will come in here at least once every day because it is the basis and foundation of so many things. Essentially, everyday living, or it's also called practical life, is all about independence and cleaning up after themselves. It's all the self-help skills. So, this is an activity. This is just a Lite Brite but it has a very good way to teach the children their pincer grasp, to put these into the hole. We do a lot of pouring work at the beginning of the year. The pouring work is much more simplified, we have larger containers, and they have maybe pom poms in them, or things of that nature, rather than water. We always put a little sponge with every one of the works that have water in them. This is just a spooning work, they just spoon this from one container to the next. This is a tonging work, this is great to teach the children the strength for doing scissor work. This is the same motion, so any tongs will work for this type of an activity. We do, this is a dusting work and all the children do with this particular activity, there's a little, a little brush and they treat it. We always have something that's really quite beautiful and very delicate for that activity so the children know to respect the items that they have in their classroom. So, we do a lot with stringing, a lot with opening and closing, we - this is where we would teach the children how to button and fasten Velcro, snap..."