I'm in the midst of a bit of reading about Maria Montessori's educational philosophy, partially inspired by recent discussions about Miriam's potential future at a preschool of some sort or another, mostly out of an interest in making full time parenting as rigorous and intellectually engaging for me as possible. Her focus on physical action as educational method, the hand teaches the brain, seems at least as well fitted for a child in the home as in a classroom.
Today Miriam took an extra long nap and I found myself making fresh pasta. She woke up at the very end of the preparations, as I was about to run the flattened dough through the fettucini cutter. So after a little break for cooking to welcome her to the waking world and give her a snack of milk and cheese and cucumbers (upon her request), I asked her to help make the pasta. She turned the crank beautifully, only occasionally reversing direction and sending the half-cut pasta back up out of the cutter. Though it started as just a way to engage her while I finished the prep, it turned out three hands were quite useful to feeding the sheets in smoothly and removing the completed fettucini without having the strands overlap and stick to each other. Go teamwork!
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