Rainbow Rice and Practical Life Skills

My Little Man is always telling me he can do things himself.  In fact, he usually gets more upset if I try to give him too much help.  Even when he is struggling with something, he often wants to struggle through it on his own.  So, the hardest thing for me has been trying NOT to say too much...letting him tell me when he wants me to get involved.  Yes, typically, he will give in and allow me to help him, but not before he has gone it alone with sufficient effort!  So, recently, I have been reading quite a bit about the Montessori method. Specifically, how to encourage and support LM's desire to be more independent.  The answer...Early Practical Life Skills.

Basically, it boils down to this: allow the child many opportunities to practice any skill that will help him in his daily life.  Any activity that promotes, hand eye coordination, motor skills, organization, self-concept, and independence would be appropriate.  So, as it turns out, every moment of our day is an opportunity for Little Man to tackle these life skills and gain more of the independence he so desires...choosing clothes, toys and foods, dressing, playing, and eating, as well as, cleaning up and organizing his toys (I've also started our Montessori style organization for all of LM's toys and activities.  I'm sure I will be posting lots of pics once I finally have it all completed!)

Today, I decided to try something completely new with my Little Man. I made rainbow rice and pasta for him to practice basic hand-eye coordination skills. It was simple and turned out so beautifully, I almost didn't want anyone to touch it!!  =)

In a bowl, combine 1 C of rice or pasta, 1 tsp rubbing alcohol, and at least 5 drops of food coloring*.  I used a 10 lb. bag of rice and got 4 cups of each of the 6 colors in the picture.  Spread each color on wax paper for at least 5 hours to dry completely. 

*The red and blue pasta required double the amount of food coloring to get the rich color I was looking for.

SPOONING EXERCISES

Today we simply started with using a spoon to scoop the grains of rice into a small bowl.  Little Man has been practicing with using a spoon for a while now with his meals, however, as you can see from the picture, getting the rice INTO the bowl was much more challenging!  In the next couple days I plan on moving on to this activity.

 STRINGING BEADS

After dinner, Little Man and daddy sat down to explore with the new rainbow colored pasta.  Using the Montessori modeling methods, LM's daddy showed him how to use the shoelace and string the noodles on one at a time.  LM watched intently and when he tried it himself, he was very serious about it!  He definitely struggled at first, but I think it won't be long before he's picked up speed and even realizes he can string the pasta into color patterns.





This is our celebration of the success Little Man had with stringing the noodles on the lace! 

When LM was finished with the stringing activity, we cleaned it up and added the container of pasta to his activity shelf.  Now it is accessible anytime he or I decide to try it again.  I have to say, so far...I'm totally loving these methods!