👚Clothes 💦Washing Activity • Montessori 🙌🏻Practical Life

My children like feeling useful, and they like just about as much being outside and near (or preferable in) the water. This activity achieves all those goals. The hardwood clothesline stand (buy here) is perfect for hanging laundry, which is an irresistible activity. Fun and easy for children to handle, this small stand is convenient for towels, cloths, socks, doll clothes, or wet artwork, to name a few. Also, this child-size wooden laundry rack is very useful since it is compact, foldable and transportable.   

Buy the entire cloth washing activity here. 
I myself use the scrub board (buy here) for delicate clothing (such as silk or wool).

Sometimes, I do not have enough clothing for a load of laundry, so this is when this clothes washing activity comes handy. It is a practical activity for children, which is purposeful and useful, and we save water by not running a load of laundry.
Children are using mini wooden clothespins (buy here). These tiny clothespins are functional replicas of the full-size spring pins, and are perfect for developing fine motor control as the thumb and index finger coordination is required to strengthen the pincer grip.

By "working" side-by-side with our children and sharing our daily activities, we show them that we believe and trust that they can do it themselves. And that we respect the innate desire to help and be helpful.“The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence,”  said Maria Montessori. In turn, the child derives such a pleasure in the usefulness of his/her own "activity" and the sense of fulfillment from what some adults might consider as undesirable "chores." So, let's turn chores into 🤗fun!   

It is in learning to do such mundane activities such as dressing, dusting, sweeping, preparing and serving food, and fixing or building-work that a child sees going on around him all day long-that he learns to use his body and mind for a purpose, to plan, to concentrate, to control his actions, to finish what he started. ... Allowing the child to participate in the daily work he sees going on around him is an act of great respect for, and confidence in, the child. It helps him to feel important to himself and those around him. He is needed. Child of the World by Susan Stephenson. 

Do your children help you with the laundry?