Montessori - Practical Life III

Third Practical Life exercise I would like to show you is

transferring water with a sponge.

Materials:

• two bowls (or a pet bowl like the one above) with some water in one of them
• small sponge (I've cut a large one into smaller pieces)
• a cloth for wiping spills

This has always been one of the favorite exercises at a Montessori school I've worked at before. Kids just love any work with water.
The bowl with water should be placed on the left side and the empty bowl on the right.
The objective is to transfer water from one bowl to the other using a sponge. It sounds easy, right? Nope, not for little hands.
Show the child how to place the sponge into the bowl, squeeze it and slowly let go to soak up the water. Then hold the sponge over the empty bowl and gently squeeze it to let the water drip into the empty bowl. This process needs to be repeated until all the water is transferred.


Of course when working with this exercise you have to be prepared for some spills, but no worries - it's only water and if you give the child a cloth to wipe the spill he will happily do wipe it.

This exercise helps in strengthening the muscles in the child's hands which in turn help
 him with the pencil grip.

Soaking the sponge

 

Squeezing the sponge with both hands

Squeeze!

Time to tidy up!