Inspired by the philosophies of the Montessori early childhood education system, the toddler room educators often like to facilitate activities that fall under Maria Montessori's "practical life" category. Practical life encapsulate a variety of activities designed to introduce and encourage consistent, repeated practice using foundational developmental skills, like pouring water from one container to another, using tweezers to pick up and drop small objects, and fitting keys into locks.
These tasks may sound simple and mundane at first, but there are many things about practical life activities that can really capture the attention of young children. As expected of this age group, many of our toddlers are well into the "I can do it myself" stage. This is a wonderful stage of growth where they're becoming more and more independent, taking an active role in all aspects of daily routine. In the week leading up to Easter, we decided to combine the visually engaging aesthetic of Spring-coloured Easter eggs with the practical life activity of lacing to support the children's desire to try more complex independent tasks.
The Easter eggs were prepared using cardboard with small holes punched around the outer edge and a ribbon with a "needle" fashioned at the end (masking tape wrapped around it) for a little more ease of guiding it through the holes. It only took a brief demonstration by an educator pushing the ribbon through one of the holes and pulling it all the way through from the other side for the determined toddlers to get started on their own.
Lacing is a tricky task for this age group, but we were sure that our class would be up to the challenge, and they most certainly were! The activity focuses on fine-motor skills with its demand for hand-eye coordination with quite small manipulatives, but another substantial part of lacing is concentration and problem solving. If a child was able to get the ribbon through a hole but forgot to pull the rest of the ribbon through before moving on to the next hole, they would quickly find that the ribbon was stuck, forcing them to backtrack, identify, and fix the snag. The "do it myself" attitude proved the perfect motivation to solve those problems as they came up so that they were able to carry on until the ribbon reached its end.
The toddlers demonstrated truly impressive attention and resolve working on this complicated task until they were satisfied with the job they'd done. In the end, many exclaimed "I did it!" and carried their Easter egg from one educator to another to show it off with great pride in themselves.
