No matter how strange this seems to adults, practical life exercises are not only fun for kids, but also great for small motor development AND their brain development. Maria Montessori already wrote dozens of books on this topic, so I’ll just get right down to this one: combining Astronomy and Practical Life tongs activity!

Lots of new materials need lots of new shelves. So, during my trip to Ikea to get more furniture, I picked up some heart shaped ice cube trays. Aren’t they cute? I thought so too. Especially, considering, that ice was the last thing that I was planing to keep in them! Ice cube trays without ice?! Yep, these hearts are just begging to be filled with some beloved possessions!

This week we have astronomy, Solar System, so this week we are going to fill our hearts (both real and ice-cube tray ones) with planets. First, our resources:

• Pom-poms of different sizes, marbles, stones,  foil pieces,  other small objects to represent different heavenly bodies
• Tweezers or small tongs (sugar tongs, strawberry hauler, etc.)
• ice cube trays (in our case – full of hearts!)
• small bowl to hold the pom-poms
• tray
• Control Card: I created and printed (and laminated) a card for him to refer to for planets, planet names,  and other objects, in case he forgets the next time when he wants to do this activity by himself. (in this file you will find objects for our other Astronomy activities as well)

I liked pom-poms for my planets, since I could try to match the colors (red for Mars, blue for Neptune, dark blue for Uranus, etc.) and sizes (large pom-pom for Jupiter, medium for Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn, small ones for other planets).  I used a small rock to represent an asteroid.  A rock slightly wraped in a foil – that’s our meteoroid (i.e. rock and metal).  Tiny marble ball – that’s Pluto.  We even found a star shaped bead for a comet!   I cut out a piece of cardboard for the Saturn rings, and… our solar system was complete!  I wish there was another section for the Sun, but since the designers of the ice cube trays didn’t count important objects in our Solar System prior to making their final product, we just assume the Sun is there too.

So, now we can proceed: slowly, one by one, we transfer the planets into the hearts, saying something like “I love Mercury!  I love Venus!  I just love our Earth!!!”, until we fill all the planets (we try to go in order) and other objects.   Then we use tweezers to move them all back in a bowl.  What do you know, after just a two runs, my Sunshine could recite all of the planet names and other objects one by one!

Honestly, I had fun too.