Practical Life Activities for Toddlers: Dust Mittens

At MOPS a few weeks ago we had a speaker who talked about her responsibility chart (she has 7 kiddos). Her children started helping out with chores around 2-3 years old with little things and she had some GREAT ideas! One of her ideas was to make your kids a flannel dusting mitten to wear to help you dust.

Sweet P will start out helping me with a little rag, get frustrated that I won't let her spray the olive oil/vinegar mixture and go back to playing. I thought making a mitten and giving her an empty spray bottle would be right up her alley!

Well, she loved the mitten so much she asked me to make another one for her other hand! I whipped up another one and she tried them out in the basement.

Make them BIG! Mine are too small and I'll probably need to make another set for her soon.

How to make them:

Simply trace your child's hand on a piece of flannel fabric folded in half. I exaggerated the tracing so the mitten would be larger than her hand. Sew (or glue with a glue gun) the edge at the top of the glove on each piece to create a hem. Place the two pieces wrongside out and sew along the edge. Turn the mitten inside out and insta-dusting mitt!

Practical Life Activities for Toddlers: Meal Time

As I mentioned in our Bathing Baby Blue post, we have been encouraging Sweet P to do more of her day to day routine on her own. She LOVES to help prepare meals and pulls her chair over to help me make things like pancakes, granola, muffins and anything else that doesn't involve a burner. 

At breakfast I've started putting her food into smaller containers so that she can create her meal on her own. The meal below is granola in a measuring cup with a handle, soymilk in a pitcher, and blueberries and almonds in stainless steel bowls. I almost explained the order to her, but then decided to let her figure it out on her own because does it really matter if she puts the milk in before the blueberries? Nope. 

She loves getting to do this on her own and at the end of her meal she brings each item to the sink (usually one at a time). Sure it dirties up more dishes, but the joy on her face as she prepares her own meal is worth a few extra seconds of loading dishes in the dishwasher (which she has also started helping out with). 

Do your kiddos help out with mealtime?

Practical Life Activities for Toddlers: Bathing Baby Blue

We are slowly, but surely trying to add more Montesorri methods to our tot preschooling. There are several practical life activities that we have been encouraging Sweet P to do on her own and with us. It's been really neat to watch her do this things by herself and to see the light in her eyes as she realizes it. Some of these might seem really simple, but she gets really excited when she gets to help or do them on her own.

Bathing Baby Blue (this is her new name for Baby Brother so I'm changing it in the blog!) has been something that she really enjoys doing with me. We have a very small bathroom so she usually gets pretty wet in the process! Baby Blue is outgrowing his bathtub so he splashes a lot of water everywhere! She's learned to be very gentle and helps clean him with a small wash cloth. She also likes to help me empty the water into the big bathtub when we are finished. He is smitten with her and loves to have another face to smile at while we bath him.

Don't you just love that little patch of hair on Baby Blue?! I had a lady call it a reverse goatee. Sweet P calls it his baby mullet.

Next time she is awake to help out, I think I'll ask her to help me fill the bathtub with a large measuring cup. What do your toddlers help with?