Montessori Snack Time

Home » Montessori at Home » #30DaystoMontessori » Montessori Snack Time

Today, I am so honoured to bring you our first guest post for the #30daysofMontessori challenge, written by Simone Davis.

Her post builds on yesterday’s challenge of building a self-serve kitchen area, and also invites us to consider the benefits of a Montessori-style snack time: independence, respect, and self-awareness.

Encourage independence and manners at snack time, with these tips for a Montessori teacher. Day 3 of a 30 Day Challenge to Bring Your Heart & Home to Montessori. #30daystoMontessori

Today’s challenge: Encouraging good habits at snack time

It is easy to let your child snack all day as we like Montessori kids to be able to help themselves. Some children do not sit at the table to eat and are allowed to play and eat at the same time. I don’t even taste my food if I am working on my computer and eating too. The same for children playing and eating.

Today’s challenge is to introduce good habits at snack time: to only choose as much as they will eat; to sit to eat; and to clear away at the end of their snack.

An older child could also wash up or pack the dishwasher.

Encourage independence and manners at snack time, with these tips for a Montessori teacher. Day 3 of a 30 Day Challenge to Bring Your Heart & Home to Montessori.

Some tips

1. Encourage your child to set the table before beginning to make a cracker:
For a young child:

  • show them where the placemats are and say, “the placemat goes on the table”
  • repeat for a bowl, a glass, and a spoon and fork (each requiring a separate trip to avoid accidents)

2. Encourage them to finish what is in their bowl before taking more food
For eg, you could say, “you can have another cracker when you have finished this one”

3. Let your child do as many steps as possible and step in only when necessary
If your child spills the water or juice, you can say, “Let’s go get a cloth.” For an older child, you can give them information, “The cloth in the sink can be used for spills.”

4. All done
For a younger child, when your child stands to leave the table, ask “are you all done with snack time?” If an older child leaves the table without finishing, you can also ask if they are finished.

  • if not, encourage them to sit at the table, “we sit to eat”
  • and if they are all done, encourage them to pack away their snack, “Let’s tidy away
  • young children will need to be shown how to empty any food from their bowl into the bin and place the dirty bowl in the correct place; how to empty their glass into the sink and put the dirty glass in the correct place; and where the dirty cutlery and placemats go

Encourage independence and manners at snack time, with these tips for a Montessori teacher. Day 3 of a 30 Day Challenge to Bring Your Heart & Home to Montessori. #30daystomontessori

The purpose of snack time

Your children benefit enormously from preparing their own snack. The main goals are:

  1. To help the child understand the reality of food, experiencing food from its natural form and learning more about it
  2. To help child master the motor skills of preparing food
  3. To expand the vocabulary around food – the food, the utensils, the actions we are doing
  4. To participate in the social act of eating and sharing food
  5. To encourage independence and autonomy in the child

Happy snack time!

Simone Davies loves putting Montessori into practice. She is a qualified 0-3 Montessori teacher through the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and mother of two children who attended Montessori preschool and primary school. She is from Australia and lives in the Netherlands where she runs a Montessori playgroup for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Amsterdam. 

simone

Make sure to add the #30daysofMontessori hashtag to your pictures or posts about today’s snack times! Try out one or more of Simone’s suggestions and let us know how it goes — feel free to tag me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter!

Encourage independence and manners at snack time, with these tips for a Montessori teacher. Day 3 of a 30 Day Challenge to Bring Your Heart & Home to Montessori. #30daystoMontessori

Similar Posts

2 Comments

  1. i loved this step-by-step. my oldest just turned 2 so i am working on implementing more independence skills, especially since we have an 8 month old crawling around. mom only has so many hands! anyway, question – you said you let the child get their own crackers, one at a time, until they’re done… are they getting these from the box? is the box at their level to begin with and they chose when to have a snack and what to have for it, or did you get it out for them, and put a few in a “serving dish” and they serve themselves from there?

    1. We personally do a fridge in the shelf and a specific kitchen cupboard that’s all theirs – containing their baking tools, eating tools, and snacks. It’s nice for them to have their own command centre in the kitchen! 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.