Practical Life Work at 14 Months Old

One of my favorite aspects of the Montessori method is practical life! So for starters, what IS practical life? Practical life encompasses activities that are intended to teach children skills that have real life applications. In a Montessori classroom, there are four categories of practical life: Care of the Self, Care of the Environment, Grace and Courtesy, and Control of Movement. In our home, most of the practical life activities Luca partakes in are the ones he naturally encounters as we go throughout daily life. We don't set out specific shelf work to include practical life, we are just sure to include him in tasks and chores as we go along!

Pouring: Luca is working extremely hard on pouring this month. We use these small creamer pitchers from Amazon for practicing because they are the perfect size for his small hands. Many people recommend beginning with dry pouring, using items like cereal or dry beans and working down to rice, then eventually water as skills increase. This is advice I wish I had read as we were beginning with pouring. I absolutely should have done more research before jumping in. We started right in with water pouring! Luca was showing interest as he had observed me pouring his water daily. I figured I would let him start right away. It was certainly a challenge at first and he is still working hard to master this skill!

Carrying/Transporting: I've noticed an increased interest in carrying lately. Luca will often remove trays from his shelf, carry them around, then place them back on the shelf or set them on the floor and walk away. His work right now is not always the activity, but sometimes it is the transporting of the object. After observing this behavior, I started to hand him his plate full of food to carry to his weaning table. Yes, this absolutely leads to messes and spills. I shared a post about this specifically on my Instagram recently here. I believe much of his desire to carry and transport big items stems from his drive to reach maximum effort. (Maximum effort was a concept taught by Maria Montessori and it essentially means children have an innate desire to do big, heavy work. This involves pushing their physical limits in an attempt to reach their full potential.)

Care of the Environment: Luca has been more willing to clean up this month, using towels to clean up spills. He has also loved to help us vacuum and sweep for many months! This desire is still going strong! He always wants to participate when the vacuum is pulled out and plugged in. He also began putting activities back on the shelf and placing books away when finished. He certainly doesn't do this every time, but it's clear that the distinct order of his environment has an impact on him! Finally, a big area of interest this summer has been gardening. He loves to use the watering can or the hose to help us care for the plants! He helped us plant the onion bulbs at the beginning of the summer and it's been so special to have him around to help us tend to them.

Care of Pets: The sweetest development this month has been his interest in caring for our family dog, Ruger. Luca will pick up Ruger's food bowl and carry it to the closet where we keep the dog food. He sits down with the bowl, waits for me to open the container, then I will fill the scoop and hand it to Luca for him to pour into the bowl. He really enjoys when we call Ruger over afterward to show him his fresh bowl of food. As Luca gets older, we will invite him to scoop the food out on his own. We are taking the full activity and breaking it down into manageable steps for Luca as he learns.

Care of Self: We have very *very* simple self care routine for Luca. Following his nightly bath, we invite him to brush his teeth. He brushes independently first then we do a final thorough brushing to ensure a good clean! He helps us as we dress him by pushing his arms through the sleeves and legs into his pants. He also brushes his hair. He is in the early stages of undressing as well: he will pull shirts off over his head and he is learning to remove his shoes.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about practical life in our home with our 14-month old toddler! I share a lot of videos of practical life work on my Instagram page, along with other montessori at home content! I would love for you to join my community there!