Adelaide has new knives!
Yes, knives. :) For a 2-year-old. Seems pretty normal to me (and to ones familiar with Montessori), but not for everyone, I guess. ;)
Adelaide has shown interest in cutting with knife lately. She has a usual child-size cutlery knife, not very sharp, but still actually able to cut. Softer things could be cut with it, but not really any harder ones, as it's too hard to apply enough force with it and it's not sharp enough.
So we wanted another, better knife for her. Not totally a real sharp one yet (I actually have bought one..), maybe a bit too early for that, as she could cut her fingers. She should practice her cutting skills first a bit, and then it will be time for a real knife.
There actually is a very small selection of actual knives for children/toddlers! Ones that would actually be able to cut, would be suitable for little hands, but same time wouldn't be too sharp and possibly dangerous..
We went the easy way and just followed what other Montessori blogs have already suggested - for example, the Kavanaugh blog, and ordered Curious Chef nylon knives from USA. (Also a peeler.) She had written that it has been Nora's favorite knife, so.. why not for Adelaide as well. Also, the price was reasonable, even with all the shipping.
Short backstory - children love cutting, as they love taking part in food prep, and being able to prepare food for themselves. It's great to allow them do that, as it develops hand strength, hand-eye coordination, precision etc etc, as well as responsibility, taking care of themselves and so on. Pretty logical. And with suitable enough tools, supervision and trust in them, they are actually able to use such tools (that others find dangerous, same as with glass, for example) very successfully and feel proud and accomplished.
I know many Montessorians start with some wavy vegetable choppers (as seen in the blog I mentioned), as children are able to use them before an actual knife.. But I didn't bother to find one of those, as it's not something that we would even use ourselves.
She already likes to spread her own butter etc on the bread, and we are letting her do that (sometimes), perhaps I will find a spreader exactly for her as well.
The Curious chef knives came surprisingly fast, which is nice! They were bigger than we imagined.. But I guess they're ok still. For now gave only the smallest one to Adelaide. We are maybe a bit disappointed with the peeler, it's also pretty big, so I don't really see any difference from a usual peeler that we could buy here.
Adelaide tried her new knife today a bit. :) She still has to practice using it.. It needs a bit different movement than she has used to be doing so far - so far she was pushing with the knife, with this one you kind of have to saw. But it was cutting cucumber very well, even I could use this knife. And she was definitely very excited, so it looks like this was a good purchase. :)
P.S. She did not cut these pieces (maybe half a piece), these were part of the demonstration process. But later in the evening she very successfully cut a banana. :)
Adelaide has shown interest in cutting with knife lately. She has a usual child-size cutlery knife, not very sharp, but still actually able to cut. Softer things could be cut with it, but not really any harder ones, as it's too hard to apply enough force with it and it's not sharp enough.
So we wanted another, better knife for her. Not totally a real sharp one yet (I actually have bought one..), maybe a bit too early for that, as she could cut her fingers. She should practice her cutting skills first a bit, and then it will be time for a real knife.
There actually is a very small selection of actual knives for children/toddlers! Ones that would actually be able to cut, would be suitable for little hands, but same time wouldn't be too sharp and possibly dangerous..
We went the easy way and just followed what other Montessori blogs have already suggested - for example, the Kavanaugh blog, and ordered Curious Chef nylon knives from USA. (Also a peeler.) She had written that it has been Nora's favorite knife, so.. why not for Adelaide as well. Also, the price was reasonable, even with all the shipping.
Short backstory - children love cutting, as they love taking part in food prep, and being able to prepare food for themselves. It's great to allow them do that, as it develops hand strength, hand-eye coordination, precision etc etc, as well as responsibility, taking care of themselves and so on. Pretty logical. And with suitable enough tools, supervision and trust in them, they are actually able to use such tools (that others find dangerous, same as with glass, for example) very successfully and feel proud and accomplished.
I know many Montessorians start with some wavy vegetable choppers (as seen in the blog I mentioned), as children are able to use them before an actual knife.. But I didn't bother to find one of those, as it's not something that we would even use ourselves.
She already likes to spread her own butter etc on the bread, and we are letting her do that (sometimes), perhaps I will find a spreader exactly for her as well.
The Curious chef knives came surprisingly fast, which is nice! They were bigger than we imagined.. But I guess they're ok still. For now gave only the smallest one to Adelaide. We are maybe a bit disappointed with the peeler, it's also pretty big, so I don't really see any difference from a usual peeler that we could buy here.
Adelaide tried her new knife today a bit. :) She still has to practice using it.. It needs a bit different movement than she has used to be doing so far - so far she was pushing with the knife, with this one you kind of have to saw. But it was cutting cucumber very well, even I could use this knife. And she was definitely very excited, so it looks like this was a good purchase. :)
P.S. She did not cut these pieces (maybe half a piece), these were part of the demonstration process. But later in the evening she very successfully cut a banana. :)
Comments
Post a Comment