Practical life education: Washing our dishes

Thursday 24th May 2018,

Children have an innate need to imitate the activities of adults, as this is their way of learning about their role within society and their environment. Thus, practical life exercises are designed to meet this need by providing children with the skills to move and manipulate materials independently.

Recently, we have made a few improvements to our room and our home corner area. We introduced kitchen items sourced from op shops and discount stores to give a real life feel to the space so that the area could be seen as a home away from home and to provide the children with a sense of belonging. 

Familiar items were added so that our children can begin to make connections between home and the service. This would assist the children with their dramatic play experiences as they begin to re-enact events they have experienced or heard about here. Providing space for more than one kind of role play in this area was an important consideration in arranging the home corner. Allocating enough space so one part of the home corner can be defined as a kitchen, for example, while leaving another part open, allows children to set up a living room, bedroom, or whatever setting they need for the particular role play they have in mind. 

Today, as we expand on this space we have added a few cleaning items with miniature dish brushes, dustpans, dusters, aprons, sponges and cloths to encourage the children to think about their wellbeing and responsibility in new ways. Specifically, the practical life activity of washing dishes. 

Our aim was to extend on our daily routine, in particular our afternoon tea routine, to create greater participation from our children in setting up and packing up after our meals. Child involvement during transition periods can be an important teaching moment and we wanted our children to take responsibility for themselves by ensuring that they have opportunities to help set up and pack up the space. Our children will usually begin this transition by using their own miniature spray bottles and paper towels to wipe down the tables, arrange the chairs, set out the food bowls and drink bottles as well as having a turn at serving themselves. 

As a team we saw a gap in our routine with tidying up after meals. Currently, our children simply scrape their left over food into the bin and place their bowls into the tub. Since our children love the kitchen so much and are incredibly enthusiastic about helping out, we want to make it a small routine change to have them soak and rinse their bowls after their meal. 

Today, we added soapy water into a tub and after scraping our leftovers into the bin...the washing began. We must say most of the water did end up out of the tub but we loved their enthusiasm. Plus the dishes were super shiny! 

Harry and Yushi were happy to use their hands to pour the soapy water over their bowls, Jonny thought a large brush would do the trick but ended up using this to scrub the floor (not that we mind), Ilaria, Penelope, Olivia J and Olivia P were skillful in using their hand and eye coordination by gripping onto the bowl and they applied pressure with their brushes. Charlie couldn't resist getting into character by wearing his master chef apron. Wolfe, Finnley and Milo were more interested in cause and effect and pouring their water from bowl to bowl. 

This is the beginning of the learning process and we will keep persisting with our intentional teaching and modifying the space with picture labels on the tubs and cleaning stations so that each sequence is clearly outlined to the children.

Cleaning dishes is a valuable skill. It is not always that simple to do and often takes some practice. Learning such tasks from a younger age can create positive habits that they will carry forward in their lives. We can already see our children taking pride in their accomplishments, taking charge and doing things for themselves as well as following instructions.