Montessori Flowers

Babies and toddlers need to move!  It is exhausting keeping up with Calvin right now at 17 months.  He might stop for a few moments to listen to a book or use some work from his shelf, but the majority of the time he is on the move.  Dr. Montessori recognized the need for gross motor opportunities  not only for their importance in developing the large muscles of the body, but also in their role in healthy brain development.  Children (and adults for that matter) do not learn optimally when they are sitting and listening, reading, or writing all day.  To engage the whole mind, the whole body must be engaged!  The need for gross motor activities is especially important in the toddler age when children are hitting gross motor milestones and first developing skills such as walking, running, climbing, and jumping. We don't necessarily need to provide specific materials to support a child's gross motor development.  A child looking to pull up on somet...

Calvin has officially moved from his nursery to his "big boy room"!  My dad made the room for him in May.  It was a completely unfinished space before (didn't even have insulation or drywall), and it was a lot of fun creating the space with Calvin in mind.  After the construction was done, I had the fun of completely furnishing and decorating the room.  I have tried to set up the room to promote independence. Within the past few months, Calvin has been spending an increasing amount of time in the room playing and reading.  Last weekend he slept in the room for the first time! Here's a little tour of his new toddler room! Calvin's toddler wardrobe: This is an Ikea Kallax unit that I modified using a hack I saw on Of The Moon and several other Montessori blogs. Four drawers on the left and I left the shelf off the right side and instead installed a tension rod for a toddler-height closet rod!  To start, I am just putting out two shirts for Calv...

Most mom friends of mine were excited to set up the perfect nursery for their firstborn child. It’s a natural part of the nesting phase before welcoming a new baby. I was no different, but the nursery I created looked nothing like the nurseries of my friends. One of Maria Montessori's key concepts was the importance of having child-sized furniture at a child’s level. A traditional nursery is set up largely for the convenience of the adult, while a Montessori nursery is truly set up for the child. The floor bed: I have already shared a post about the most striking difference between a Montessori nursery and a traditional nursery--the lack of a crib! We have a mattress right on the floor which Calvin was able to get in and out of on his own soon after he began crawling. The changing area: No changing table in a Montessori nursery! Ideally, the changing area should be in the bathroom so that the baby associates toileting with the bathroom from early on, but we have a...

In a Montessori classroom, the final step in a child’s cycle of activity is cleaning up the work and putting it back where it belongs. I’ve had parents of three-year-olds in my class who were quite surprised to hear how proficiently their child could put their work back on the same shelf where they found it and roll their rug and return it to the rug basket. One would think that a room full of young children would be a disaster at the end of the day (and trust me, we do have those days), but for the most part the children take care of the classroom and make sure everything is in its proper place. “But why doesn’t my child do this at home?” I have been asked. After doing some thinking about it, I have decided that the main reason is probably too much stuff. For everything to be in its proper place, it first needs to have a specific place where it belongs. This is incredibly hard to do when a child has 500 toys. Perhaps an exaggeration, but I remember the daunting task of cleaning...

An element of Montessori that I absolutely love is the emphasis on beauty. Many children’s spaces that I enter--a bedroom, a play room, a classroom--are overwhelmed by bright, primary colored plastic toys and furniture. Overwhelming and chaotic. In my opinion, so much of it is just plain ugly. Especially when you have a whole house full of it. Montessori emphasizes the use of natural materials when possible. Wooden toys instead of plastic. The toys are beautiful, which creates a peaceful space for not only the child, but the adults as well! Our lives are filled with electronics, and children’s toys are no exception. A Montessori baby or toddler space should not be filled with electronic toys. I was first attracted to this idea because noise-making toys are annoying! I want a peaceful space for my child, and the noise of electronic toys is too chaotic. The more I read, the more this philosophy is backed up by research. Electronic toys detract from concentration--a vital skill fo...