Practical Life | Popcorn

When I set up my new Montessori cupboard I had a basic selection of PL activities that I'm still trying to post. This is one of them & what happened at the first presentation:

The activity as it's presented on the tray. 

The first step is to remove the lids of the canister and frypan & place them to the right. Then, all of the popcorn is scooped into the canister lid using the melon baller.

The second movement - from the canister lid into the mini frypan using the alternate end of the melon baller. 

Lovely in action. He did a good job of picking up spilt kernels which was great but I probably have too many in there as it does take quite a while to scoop them all. The final step is to pour the kernels from the frypan (holding the handle) back into the canister & replace both of the lids. 

Woops, I lost him! He wanted to 'cook' with the popcorn kernels when he had completed the work & I tentatively said yes (now I say no & have given him some of his own popcorn in the kitchen play area :) 

I did kinda like what came of this however! Here he has gone and got a bunch of bowls from the kitchen (they're all accessible for the children as well as us) and silver cutlery & is moving the popcorn between the bowls in a variety of ways. I like the play/work elements going on here especially that he was at liberty to get all of this apparently essential 'equipment'.