Montessori Education has a great article (along with step-by-step videos) on one of our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children's favorite "practical life" exercises - Table Washing. Our children find so much peace and joy doing simple activities like this and some have internalized and put into practice the ideas in truly beautiful ways.
If you’re at home with some time on your hands, so basically every parent in the world right now, you and your child might also enjoy table washing, Montessori style. Below are a few short videos to help you become a pro at guiding your child through the activity.
Just note that if your son or daughter is around age 6 or younger, the goal for him or her as a child is not necessarily like ours as adults. From the child’s perspective, the result or end product is not the purpose. It’s the process that matters. It’s the act of getting a cloth, of wetting and putting soap on it, of moving that soapy cloth around a table, of drying that table afterward — these actions are what’s important to the child, and to early development. (This is one way in which children strengthen
executive functioning skills.) So unlike us grownups, the young child is not focused on having a perfectly clean table; he/she merely enjoys the act of cleaning it, all on his/her own.
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