If you do Montessori homeschool or send your children to a Montessori school, you will know that the Montessori Practical Life curriculum consists of 6 categories.
They learn a variety of life skills such as care of self, others and the environment.
The bottom line is that kids do chores for many reasons.
They develop responsibilities, independence and cooperation.
If you are looking to becoming a centered, organized Montessori Guide, nurture happy, normalized children and want to create smooth, successful Montessori days, then you are in the right place!
Let me know in comments what you know about this topic, what you have applied, what you have tried that worked, what you have tried that didn’t work and if you have any questions as we get into this training.
Do you have family chores at home? What about individual ones for each child to do?
Do you have several family members that have daily responsibilities in your home?
Whether you have older kids or younger ones, we will be discussing what you can do to make chores easier and more doable.
As you watch or listen to this training, know that you will be able to get more information than what is included in this blog post.
I really want to encourage you to take the time to watch or listen and take notes.
This will be helpful to you now and in the future.
#1 Make the nomenclature visual
You will make sure that children understand the terms that you will be using in the chore list or chart.
They must know what they mean (define the terms) and also what the process is for each thing.
This means that as you plan for the Practical Life Montessori activities that you want children to become proficient and independent in, you will make sure they can easily decipher what those are, no matter their age.
There are millions of printable chore charts out there.
Some are spreadsheets, others are checklists and there are many others.
But I am wanting to focus on the visual part of these chore charts.
If children can see them, they can know what the chores are, even if they don’t know how to read yet.
You can get them laminated and use dry erase markers to mark them as done.
Or you can use chore cards instead of charts.
No matter what method you decide to use, I highly recommend that you make it as visual as possible, especially for the younger children.
“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”
~ Maria Montessori
#2 Make chores age appropriate
Making sure that the children have age appropriate chores is a big key to their success.
You can have a successful chore system that can include a single chore chart for multiple kids.
Think about possibly having older kids (siblings) or another family member to rotate helping the younger ones.
And by “helping,” I mean observing, NOT doing things for them.
“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.” ~ Maria Montessori
Demonstrating is ok at first, but the point is to create these chores age appropriate so the child can do it themselves.
You can also make them a collaborative activity.
For example, the older child can rinse the dishes and the toddler can load the dishwasher.
Or the older child can dry the dishes and the toddler can put them away (or the other way around if the toddler can’t reach some cabinets).
#3 Practice one chore until mastery
Now that we have talked about several options for chore charts for kids to help around the home or to learn to care for themselves, let’s make sure that we do it at the right rate.
This will seem to be counterproductive at first because it will take long, but let me give you more insight on this.
For one, if you add too many chores at once, the child won’t gain mastery and you will need to repeat the steps and demonstrate a lot more.
There are just too many steps for a little one to remember!
It is best to focus on one chore at a time until the child masters it or is pretty close to it.
Focusing on one at a time will also help the child with practicing and refining fine motor skills without tiring them.
“It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give to teach child the chance to fulfill his potential possibilities.”
~ Maria Montessori
In Conclusion
I think it is obvious that giving children chores is beneficial.
They instill a positive sense of pride, collaboration and independence, which are all important premises in The Montessori Method.
But as you determine which ones you will begin with, I hope you do consider the three important points that I mentioned above.
They can really make all the difference!
HERE ARE THE RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Montessori inspired chore chart (click the photo below for the printable download):
Like I said at the beginning of the show, I have a FB group for all things Montessori that you are welcome to join.
It is called The Montessori Way Prep Room.
If you want to join a homeschool Facebook community, then join The Natural Homeschool Community!
Visit our page with all LIVE trainings HERE.
If you are interested in helping children move from dependence to independence by becoming well-rounded individuals, then you will be interested in this free printable.
It is a list of 100 Montessori Practical Life works that you can easily set up to do at home or at your Montessori environment.
Get this Montessori Practical Life activities list by clicking the image below!
You May Also Benefit from these Important Montessori Topics:
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