Fall Toddler Practical Life Activities in a Montessori Home

I want to cultivate a beautiful home of purposeful work. As we enter into the autumn season, I wanted to put together and be able to offer some new, meaningful toddler fall practical life activities to my identical twin boys. Practical life activities encourage concentration and isolation of skills. They are usually very simple to set up and are done with things in your home.

Pumpkin Scrubbing

Scrubbing is a perfect practical life for toddlers of any age. It is a purposeful task that encourages movement and concentration. Offer pumpkin scrubbing this fall! This makes a great indoor or outdoor activity. Place a pumpkin on a tray. Offer a spray bottle and a variety of scrub brushes. I am offering my 20-month-old twins a vegetable scrub brush, a sponge that I cut to be smaller, and a small towel for drying the pumpkin. Keep this activity available throughout the season and change up the size and color of the pumpkin to keep interest high.

Raking Leaves

Practical life activities can encourage gross motor skills, which are so important for toddlers. Invest in a child-size rake and model how to rake leaves. Enjoy the fun that comes after the hard work of raking leaves by jumping in the leaf pile!

Cleaning out a Pumpkin

When it is time to carve pumpkins, we can allow our toddler to help clean out the pumpkin. This is a unique sensorial expereince and may or may not be a sensation that your toddler enjoys. To avoid a large mess, open up and lay out some paper bags to do this on. Have a big bowl for the pumpkin guts to go into. Extend this work later by having your toddler separate the pumpkin seeds. Later, you can use the seeds for a pumpkin seed transferring practical life activity!

Potato Scrubbing (and peeling)

I love offering potato scrubbing to my toddlers. This was one of their first practical life activities. I love how simple, purposeful, and easy to set up it is. A vegetable scrub brush works perfectly for this. We found ours at the dollar store but here is a similar one! I have found it easier to offer larger potatoes. It gives the child an area to hold and still a lot of surface of the potato to scrub. For an older toddler, you could offer to peel a potato. I would recommend using a larger potato for this, it makes it safer to do.

Pumpkin Hammering

Many baby toys come with wooden hammers, which is what I have used to set up this activity. Use a smaller pumpkin, and press in golf tees to be secure but not pushed in all the way. Offer the pumpkin on a tray with a wooden hammer. Model how to hammer in the tees to the pumpkin and then allow your toddler to repeat this practical life activity. This activity supports hand-eye coordination and grip strength.

Harvesting from the Garden

During the fall there is still a lot to harvest from the garden. Harvesting can be a great heavy work practical life activity for a toddler, hauling around that basket of cucumbers and tomatoes. For us, this has been a great opportunity to teach and model how to be gentle with produce and flowers as well. Use a basket with handles that allow your toddler to easily help carry the basket around the garden.

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Fall Flower Arranging

We can offer cutting and arranging fall flowers in a small vase as a practical life activity that offers many opportunities to develop skills. They can pour water from a small pitcher into a small vase. Additionally, they can cut the stems and place them into the vase. These loop scissors are perfect beginning toddler scissors. All of these movements require great care or the flower may be damaged in the process. It is the perfect opportunity for developing awareness around fragile things.

Pumpkin Seed Transfering

You could set up a transferring activity in a few ways. Pouring and transferring with tongs are both great for fine motor control and coordination. We like to use these small stainless steel pitchers for pouring and transferring.