Montessori Tides School – Jacksonville Beach, FL

Many of the skills your child needs to care for self are learned in the smallest room of your house, the bathroom.

In the video below, DeAnne Deleon, closes our Practical Life Series with an informative video blog on how to bring practical life into the child’s bathroom.  DeAnne includes several tools you can provide to ensure this is a safe and comfortable place for your child to care for him/herself.

In recognition of DeAnne and her efforts, we can conclude: Practical Life is the household activities we do around the house everyday.  Learning how to take care of self and the environment are very important to the child.  They help build a sense of worth and capability to the children.

Care of self in the bathroom includes:

• Turning the faucet on and off
• Washing hands
• Brushing teeth
• Brushing hair
• Wiping nose

If you are

Montessori Tides authentic Montessori environment for preschoolers has infinite qualities worth marveling at. These qualities extend beyond just the indoor environment and stretch all the way to the outside classroom! Their endeavor to create a free flow inside-outdoor environment is one more way Montessori education is set apart from the rest.

In conventional schooling, you will notice on a daily basis, “intellectual activities”  are done inside, and “physical activities” are done outside. The only items found outside are normally playground equipment and a few balls. Montessori Tides reverses this paradigm. The former clearly separates the work of the mind and the body.

Where a free-flow inside –outside environment is established the child not only explores outdoor activities such as playground equipment, balls and sand exploration, but  indoor activities , such as painting, puzzles, musical instruments, books, block building

There are several opportunities for care of self and care of the environment in the child’s bedroom.

Care of self

1. One way that we can help the child is to organize their space.  By providing the child with several baskets on a shelf for their clothing, we give them independence and choice.  One basket for underwear and socks, one with shirts, one with shorts, and one with pajamas.  2 to 3 for each is plenty for a toddler to choose from.
2. You can provide low hooks for jackets.
3. You can also provide your child with a small bench to assist with dressing.  You may need to model how to open their shorts and put one foot in on each side or how to open the velcro on their shoes.  Try providing minimal adult intervention by giving verbal cues so that they can work on

This area of the classroom contains materials which provide tasks that the child sees in everyday life. Their familiarity draws the child to work. All the tools are child-sized to aid the child in performing the task successfully. Practical life exercises are designed to help the child gain independence, self-confidence, coordination, concentration and a sense of order.  Daily routines form the basis for the toddler classroom experience as the children encounter the process of self-care in a prepared environment. This area provides the foundation for all other areas of the classroom and is a haven to which the child may return at times to renew herself.

In the video below, DeAnna Deleon, Lead Toddler Directress, continues our Practical Life Series, In The Home. Here you will hear helpful ways in which you can support your child and create an orderly

This area of the classroom contains materials which provide tasks that the child sees in everyday life. Their familiarity draws the child to work. All the tools are child-sized to aid the child in performing the task successfully. Practical life exercises are designed to help the child gain independence, self-confidence, coordination, concentration and a sense of order.

If you are unable to view the embedded video, click here.

Daily routines form the basis for the toddler classroom experience as the children encounter  the process of self-care in a prepared environment. This area provides the foundation for all other areas of the classroom and is a haven to which the child may return at times to renew herself. Some practical life activities include:

• Window washing
• Dressing frames
• Sponging
• Spooning
• Pouring
• Ladling
• Scooping
• Baby washing
• Clothes washing
• Hanging up and putting on Jackets
• Putting on shoes and socks
• Plant washing
• Glass