Inspired by our visit to the Montessori toddler room, I decided to start making changes around our house. To get started, I made a visit to the Goodwill where I purchased fine china, silverware, glass bowls, plastic activity trays, two pitchers, and baskets for under $20. My husband and I want to allow Annabelle to use adult objects (like cups and plates made from glass), and at the same time, we want to be practical about potential outcomes (like lots of broken cups and dishes) and cost.
At home, I reorganized Annabelle’s toy shelves, her bedroom bookshelf, my arts and crafts room since I need to make space for her arts and crafts, and my husband’s rec room. So far, this is what our Montessori home looks like:
1. Coat and hat hooks next to the front door, placed low so that Annabelle can easily put her own coat away.
2. Kitchen shelf. On the bottom shelf, we placed silverware in a tray next to bowls, cups, and fine china (only $.50/plate) so that Annabelle can serve herself. Also located on this shelf are her favorite snacks.
3. Annabelle’s broom and dustpan. She is still learning how to hold the broom and sweep properly. For now I encourage her to hold the dustpan because her sweep is somewhat erratic, though always enthusiastic.
4. Small table and chair set. We moved her table and chair set to the dining room and put her booster seat into storage. She understands how to sit at her table and eat at it, although we expect to clean up many messes since she is still learning to keep her water in her cup (rather than pouring it onto the table). One perk to introducing the table and chair set for mealtimes is that she is free to come and go as she pleases, which has minimized her frustrations and tantrums during meals (when she was in her high chair or booster, she would throw food and scream to signal that she had had enough to eat or was bored).
5. Her art shelf. I moved my art supplies up (a good idea since she liked to go through them and some materials, like my jewelry kit were not really age appropriate) so that Annabelle can easily pull out her paper, coloring book, and crayons for art time. For now I am keeping her markers on a higher shelf for supervised art time with me. She loves having a new place to “work.”
6. Annabelle’s living room play/work space located in our living room. Some activities, like her chalkboard and pitchers, are on the higher shelves, although once I sell our television, I will move the top shelves to the floor so that she can reach any of her Montessori work as she pleases.
7. Her chalkboard and white board.
8. Magnetic shapes and poles, and another magnetic sphere toy. I have yet to identify these toys as Montessori activities, although she is learning cause and effect whenever she plays with magnets. Watching her connect a circle to a pole or seeing two magnets push against each other is on par with observing her problem solving abilities. It’s pretty neat.
9. Annabelle’s picture basket. I printed 4 X 6 photos of animals, flowers, our cat Toby, etc. She enjoys seeing pictures of herself (she is in 2 or 3 photos). She shouts, “Bee-bee” or “baby.”
10. Peg puzzles and a shape puzzle. She’s having some difficulty with the shape puzzle but is getting the hang of it. It requires patience and dexterity. When she becomes too frustrated, she goes over to her shelves to find another activity. To respond to her, I have shown her the sign for “help” so that I can help her as needed. I’m not sure what the Montessori approach says about helping, but in these beginning stages, I think that is necessary for me to help her as it is only the first 5 times or so that she is experiencing an activity.
11. Pouring. A great activity for building their wrist and arm muscles, as well as control. Annabelle enjoys pouring but sometimes fixates on cleaning up kernels of rice that have gotten away.
12. Shells.
13. Stacking and nesting blocks by size. Cards with colors, animals, shapes, and textures.
14. Beans in a pot. Annabelle loves this game. She feels through the pot full of beans to find the animals that are hidden inside. She also enjoys sneaking beans into her mouth.
15. Shape stacking. This is a hard one. So far we’re just focusing on puttingthe shapes back onto the dowels.
16. An abacus and wooden toy that I found in a thrift shop for $3.
17. Annabelle’s bookcase in her bedroom. I moved all books to her room (before they were all over the house). Remember I showed pictures from last week with the shelf on an angle? Well, after a playdate gone wild this week, I learned that toddlers like pushing books off the back of an open bookcase and onto the floor. To remedy lots of fallen books, I moved her dresser and pushed the bookcase against the wall. I am also asking my husband to attach a wooden back to the case and to secure it to the wall so that there is no risk of the bookcase falling forward.
18. Annabelle’s toy corner in my husband’s rec room. Oh, and the purple box? I painted our grill box and cut a side door and trap door so that she and her friends have a space all their own to imagine away with (I realize that the Montessori approach focuses on realistic imaginative play, but I really think it’s worthwhile for children to pretend).
So, this is our Montessori home thus far. I plan to add booster steps to our bathrooms, to organize her clothing drawers so that the lower shelves hold her daily clothes, and to place hooks on a wall in her bedroom for her to hang her pajamas and other clothes. I have the best of intentions with making these changes. My husband and I both agree that the Montessori home approach seems a bit ambitious, although Maria Montessori wrote that children rise to the expectations that we have for them. Sure, we will clean up spills and glass (I am sure), but it seems worthwhile to make our home accessible for our child.
More to come . . .
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June 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
You are so going to be my guide through educating my own children (some day…). This is inspiring.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
How old is your daughter? I love all the ideas, and would like to incorporate some…just curious about age. Mine is 17 months.
Thanks for the info.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Annabelle is 17 months. We are going slow with the activities though. By that, I mean that I’m taking time and repeating the activities and helping her as needed. She’s catching on though. Today she asked to work with the rice pouring and bean activity. Pouring was difficult for her but she’s got it now.
June 10th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Wow, you have done a great job - Annabelle will have wonderful stimulation in her own home!
June 10th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Thanks Gypsy! I hope so.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Congrats. My husband and I did many of these same things for our two boys who are now 4 and 5. I have a couple of thoughts. We eat at a glass table with china and glasses every night. The kids are great with it. We have old pharmacy stools that they can spin to the right height and get on and off of at will. We also have a small table and chairs for them in the kitchen for breakfast and crafts. On the topic of “glasses and china”, you might try ceramic coffee cups for her initially as broken glass is much more dangerous than broken ceramic. Second, consider mounting a handrail about 14″ below your other handrails to help Annabelle learn to navigate stairs safely. You can easily patch the mounting holes when she’s outgrown this need. Glad to see another parent teaching sign-language. It’s taught our kids a great deal about communication and still lets us ask discretely in public if they need to go potty or to talk to them from a long distance without raising our voices. Good luck!