Sweeping--Practical Life Activity

I don't know about your little ones, but mine love to do anything I do. If I'm dusting, they want to dust, if I'm cleaning the mirrors, they want to clean the mirrors, if I'm sweeping, they want to sweep. The aren't coordinated enough at this point to do much real sweeping, so I made up this little activity to help build this practical life skill.

All you need is a dustpan, a hand-held broom (I got mine at the dollar spot at Target) and some puff balls. First I showed Little Bean what to do; I poured out a container of puff balls and then gathered them into the dustpan with the broom. Then I poured them from the dustpan back into the container. He really enjoyed this. At first he was a little reticent, thinking that he couldn't do it, but once he saw how easy it was, he liked it. Also, he wanted to use his hands rather than the broom, and I was perfectly okay with that because the whole point is to build his confidence that he can do it--the skill can come later on. Miss O of course wanted to do it as well. Actually I made the activity with her in mind because she is constantly wanting to use the sweeper. She ended up using her hands for the majority of the activity, but I am confident that they will enjoy doing this again and again. What a great activity, and so simple!