A Tour

I have seen so many lovely Montessori-inspired children's spaces through the many blogs and pinterest boards I follow. They are always an inspiration to me. I only began learning about the Montessori approach about a  year ago when my son was just over a year old. I was looking at children's rooms on ApartmentTherapy.com when I spotted a Montessori floor bed and wanted to learn more. A single picture has led to a complete change in how I view my son, my role as a parent and the environment we provide for him. Before then, I have to admit that I did not realize there are so many different approaches to early childhood education. I went to public school as a child and never studied education so I was completely in the dark. A year later I am still learning, but I have fallen in love with Montessori and get daily inspiration through books, blogs and Facebook groups.

At 3 weeks old, a lactation nurse called my son strong-willed, and it's still a great description of him at 2 years 4 months. The Montessori approach has taught me how capable my son is. It allows me to put his actions as a very independent toddler into perspective, and it reminds me to slow down, follow his lead and support him as a person rather than caring for him as a dependent child. So while I am still a Montessori novice, I am pretty proud of the environment I have created at home for my son. Here's a quick tour of his spaces.

Our home has been on a gradual change over the last year to better accommodate our son. This change started slowly with his playroom by editing what toys were in there, then my husband and brother-in-law built these wonderful shelves and finally the finishing touches of color and inspiration to make it what it is today:

T completes most of his activities at his table in the center of the room. His materials including some art supplies that are out all of the time are kept on the shelves. His window is decorated with a collage of tissue paper and paper packing strips ("grass") on contact paper.

My son's artwork decorates this wall. He loves adding each new piece he creates to the wall. The empty corner here will soon be my baby girl's area. If you noticed the acrylic mirror leaning up against the wall in the last photo, it will be mounted in this area with a shelf on the small wall and a mobile overhead. This will be her area at least until she's crawling. 

Once my son crawled out of his crib (well, technically only on top of his crib because I happened to spot it on the monitor and go running like a crazy woman to save him!) at 17 months, we switched him to a floor bed. His room has been progressing since then to better meet his needs as a growing toddler. T loves playing in his closet. We typically keep a couple shirts on the lower rack for him to play with and choose between when getting dressed. He likes to relocate them from the closet to other places in the room where he can hang them. He plays with his hats, admiring himself in his mirror and generally just loves to hang out in there.

My son's toy box was his father's as a child, handmade by his great grandfather. His stuffed animal collection is kept there, but they were all taking a nap in my bed when this photo was taken. :-) The art on the wall to the right are laminated prints from calendars featuring works by Kandinsky, van Gogh, Klimt and Escher.  The hooks next to his door allow him to hang his hat or clothes from his closet.

We don't keep a lot of toys in T's room. We want him to be able to play before he falls asleep but for the room to be restful. He has an abacus, a basket of books, his workbench and tunnel in this corner. We bought the tunnel when T was just crawling, and he still loves to play in it.

T's floor bed is a twin mattress without the box spring. He has never liked being under the covers so he sleeps on top of his blanket, generally between the two pillows. Over his bed are large pages from one of his favorite books, Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle. 

One area where I am most proud of the simplicity of our enhancements is T's bathroom. By using a 2-step stool, a faucet with good reach and a pump foam children's soap, T can wash his hands by himself whenever he needs, and he has access to his toothbrush and small towels to wash his face. Of course, he also enjoys playing in the water and will occasionally wash the unexpected like his shoes or mine if they are left laying around. 

In our kitchen/dining area, T has a small table and chair. Next to the table is some more art inspiration. Behind the table is a small mirror where he frequently watches himself eat, play and make silly faces. This table gets used for everything from meals to play to art to food prep. He eats about 50/50 at this small table and at our adult-size table, where he will stand in a chair either on his feet or knees and frequently hangs from the table as he is always on the edge of a chair or hanging from somewhere. Our future rock climber! We do not have a learning tower, but T will pull up a dining chair to the kitchen sink to wash dishes or to the counter to prepare food whenever he wants. 

In our kitchen, T has two cabinets. The first one stores his glasses, bowls and silverware. T almost exclusively eats out of small bowls. He seems to prefer them, having frequently taken his food off of a plate and put it on the table in the past. This cabinet is kept intentionally clutter free to make it easy for him to get what he needs. In the second cabinet, T has all of his food prep tools and other miscellaneous items in the front of the shelves. We store infrequently used items in the back to make the most of our kitchen storage so this one is much more visually cluttered even though T's stuff is organized. Here you can see he has serving pitchers, a cherry pitter, a couple different graters, tongs/spoons, a small vegetable peeler, a crinkle cutter and small cutting board and an egg slicer on the top shelf. On the bottom shelf we keep towels for him and extra sensory materials and such. 

That concludes my tour of T's spaces in our home. With his sister arriving any day now, they will continue to evolve to meet both his needs and hers over the coming months and years, but at the moment, they work quite well for him. There's always more that I would like to do, but I am pleased overall at how much he can accomplish on his own and how much joy he seems to get from these spaces. What suggestions do you have for how I can continue to improve his environment? What's your favorite space for your child in your home? Leave me a comment!