Monday, July 27, 2009

Pickle Pinching, yes you read that right!

I was digging through "the drawer". You know, the one that is so full of junk that you can barely open it. So when you finally do open it you have to make sure nothing is sticking up in the wrong manner before you close it which would forever prevent you from opening it again?! Well, I came across our Pickle Pincher. That is the name it is marketed under! It is of course, for getting pickles out of jars and it works really well but we don't eat enough pickles for it to have a coveted place in the utensil drawer. I thought I'd try it out as a motor skill transferring activity. You have to press the red button plunger on the end of the pincher which causes 3 little metal prongs to protrude outwards. You then have to line up the prongs around the object and depress the plunger to grasp the object. I wasn't too sure if it would be too challenging but she did it without too much difficulty.
She preferred to place the object from the first basket onto the table with her fingers and than to "pinch" it with the pickle pincher to transfer it.
Aa. was into it for the first go around but it has sat on the shelf since. I have realized that I'm failing in the area of re-demonstrating activities.
I'm thinking of making a chart of all of the activities we have on the shelves and then marking when they are used so I can keep track of what is being accomplished (or not) and what I need to do to facilitate or extend the activity. Does anyone have a chart like this? If so I'd be interested to know how you set it up . If you don't have a chart how do you keep track of what's being used, learned, mastered etc.? Please share!

2 comments:

Montessori Beginnings said...

What a cool contraption. In answer to your question I think the best person to ask is the woman who does the Wonder Years blog. She seems to be the most "professional" Montessori blogger.

Montessori Beginnings said...

Hello again. I left you an award on my blog because you are so fantastic!!