Placemat for Practical Life Practice
Practical Life Skills
Practical life skills are valuable for little ones to learn and fun to practice! These activities are real-life tasks that children see adults doing all the time. Practicing them can help children feel capable of taking care of their needs as they go throughout their day. Practicing practical life activities can help a child’s day be smoother, as it helps them to know what to expect in their daily rhythm.
Some examples of practical life activities are:
- pouring activities
- hand washing
- folding clothes
- clothing care- a dressing frame can help
- sweeping
- sorting
- washing a table
- washing dishes
- flower arranging
- plant care
- chopping food
- setting the table
Tools can help!
When a skill is introduced, it can help to provide guidelines for success. Sometimes, providing something that can guide your child is all it takes to spark independence.
A placemat can appeal to a young child's strong sense of order at mealtime and can offer clear expectations through a visual boundary. This means that they can self-correct based on the feedback from the placemat instead of relying on you, the adult, to tell them how their plate should look. Self-correction is beneficial in building resilience, confidence, and independence!
By preparing a space to encourage this skill practice, you are allowing them to work on it at their own pace, motivated by a desire to do the work.
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