Today, Brendan and I tried finger painting for the first time! He was actually quite hesitant and looked at me in utter disgust when I put a dab of paint onto his tiny hand. Finally, with a look of deep concentration on his face, he squished his hand together in a fist. He continued opening and closing his fist a few times and then looked up at me and smiled! This was the exact reaction I had been hoping for! It took him a few times of watching mommy rub the dab of finger paint onto the paper for him to catch on. He enjoyed painting himself more than the paper and tired of it quickly though. For those of you wondering, we used Crayola Wonder paint. It’s goopy and colorless until painted on special paper. That’s how it’s supposed to be but it showed a little color on the tray to his highchair.
Since he tired of painting with finger paint quickly, I decided to incorporate a snack into this activity. I scooped a spoonful of strawberry, banana yogurt onto his highchair tray. He enjoyed this a lot more than the colorless paint. It wasn’t long before his entire tray was smeared with yogurt. After awhile, he stuck his face on the tray and started licking it off the tray! I gave him a spoon so he could finally learn how to use utensils, he is never interested and always prefers that we feed him. To my surprise, he scooped some right up and stuck the spoon in his mouth!
After we finished finger painting, we still had about ten minutes left our daily thirty extra minutes left. I decided to utilize this time to incorporate some Montessori teaching. Brendan has always enjoyed letting me help him wash his hands, so I decided I would attempt to teach him to wash his hands himself. I got the idea for this project out of the book entitled “Help Me Do It Myself” by Maja Pitamic. For this activity you need a large plastic bowl, a tray, a bar of soap, a medium pitcher filled with warm water and two hand towels.
First, I placed the bowl on the table with all of the remaining items to the right. I filled the bowl half full of water. Then I wet my hands and rubbed soap over my hands slowly, allowing Brendan to see that I was covering my hands with the soap. I did this while singing “Top and bottom, top and bottom. In between, in between. Don’t forget to rinse now, don’t forget to rinse now. Nice and clean, nice and clean.” I then allowed Brendan to watch me place the soap back in it’s proper place, to the right of the bowl. I then rinsed my hands in the water while repeating the song, which I orignally heard on the Disney Channel. Then I dried my hands using the towl, slowly so he could see that I was drying each part of my hand. I then replaced the dirty water with the clean, explaining while showing him the dirty water, that the water needs to be changed before he washes his hands because it’s dirty.
Then finally, he had a chance to try. First, he splashed in the water a bit. Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. He splashed in the water a lot. He splashed so much, that the water needed to be replaced a few times. I reminded him gently that we were washing our hands and I handed him the soap. To my surprise, he lathered his hands generously and returned the soap to it’s starting place. He then, of course tasted the soap. Given the look on his face, he must not have liked the taste. He then proceeded to splash his soapy hands in the water. After awhile, he discovered that the water had become soap and I observed as he attempted to pop a few bubbles. He became frustrated after time, because there were no more bubbles to pop. Again, I gently reminded him that we were washing our hands and it was time to dry them. I could tell he was getting tired of this activity, as he demanded, “No!” So I dried his hands for him. I think he’ll gain better understanding of this activity with time.
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