Cleaning Supplies

I'm continuing my Montessori Method experiments and have some questions for any experienced moms!

I'm now keeping my eyes out for inexpensive child-sized kitchen tools and I set aside a drawer in the kitchen for some. Also, you can see the beginning of a Montessori activity called "opening and closing," I think, in which one gives the child a little collection of different containers so he can practice opening and closing. That develops fine motor skills, which also builds connections in the brain which I think I read help with language (still reading my first book on the subject, so don't quote me!)

I created a vinegar-and-water cleaning kit so John can wash windows or just about anything else. He hasn't noticed it yet so we'll probably practice it tomorrow.

I hung some tools at a child's height in the laundry room: a small broom, a small hand broom and dustpan, and a working apron. I had tried for months to have John help me sweep using this small broom, which he covets. But he always swung it around wildly in the air, such that I banished it from the house and made it an outside "toy." I'm going to see if he can now be taught that it is a tool to be used properly or will he consider it a toy that he can still swing around. Did any of you really have under-two toddlers who started sweeping with a tiny broom and didn't consistently use it as a baseball bat or numchuks?

Also, I have a question about the little hand broom, which John thinks is great. How do I teach John that it is to be used on the floor only? Apparently telling him 57 times and losing my temper and shouting it repeatedly doesn't work. (Really, I tell him, "John, the broom is for the floor only and only the floor" and he stares me in the eye while brushing it on the kitchen table.) I even tried explaining germ theory, which was ridiculous. How do I explain to a two-and-a-half-year-old that the broom is for cleaning the floor (which looks clean to him anyway) but when he uses it on the kitchen counter, kitchen table, and anywhere else, he is getting those things dirty (and those things still look perfectly clean to him too)?

And what about "water play" with John's real glass pitcher and drinking glasses? John is accustomed that the only time he has pourable water is at "water play time." Now I'm telling him in a confusing way that this pitcher and these glasses are "real" and for drinking, not for water play. If he sits there and pours back and forth, he ultimately creates spills and clinks the glass together and it just doesn't seem like the thing to do. But maybe I'm mistaken? Guidance, Montessori moms?