If you are setting up a Montessori home or a Montessori classroom you may need to visit your local hardware store. Our local hardware store Bunnings (Australia) has many useful things for a Montessori home including lots of practical life and storage ideas.  

Let's start with the obvious, Bunnings is a good place for sourcing indoor plants. Indoor plants are fantastic for care of the environment activities like watering, dusting and generally taking care of the plant. 🌱

Seedlings and herbs are always interesting to grow with children. 

While there are many seeds suitable to be grown by children, this Little Gardeners range is cute. 

A little greenhouse is a good way to bring gardening indoors, or outdoors on a balcony or deck. Place it somewhere low so the children can freely observe the growth.

Our Bunnings has lots of terracotta pots. We use the large shallow pots for our children's herb garden. The terracotta is easy for the children to paint and decorate.

We have a couple of these small half barrels in our garden, they are a good height and size for our children's strawberry plants. 

Children's gardening gloves. 

We use these small children's gardening tools. 

Large children's gardening tools. We have the rake, hoe and shovel from this collection and they are fantastic. 

We love this children's wheelbarrow. We've had it for over a year and it still looks like new. 

Children's planter. We have this too in our children's gardening area. I love it and wish we had a few more.

Using a seed sprouter is a good way for the children to be involved in gardening all year round and as this can be used on the counter or table, children can closely observe the seeds sprouting.

We use this worm farm and it's a great way of showing children how composting and vermicomposting works. 

Children can be involved in setting up a bird feeder and observe the birds that come and visit. 

Bunnings has children's paint and paint sticks (which I love for toddlers and preschoolers). 

Wooden numbers and letters. I wish the letters were lower case. 

An affordable children's easel. 

These small chubby tools are a good size for young children. 

If you are doing woodworking activities these junior saws could be useful. We use the red Junior Hacksaw in our children's woodworking area.

Hand drills can also be used in the children's woodworking area. 

I love to use temporary shelves like this in our bathrooms and shower, so the children can reach their own soaps, shampoo (good for developing autonomy and independence) and toys without them going on to the floor.

These temporary bathroom accessories are easy to position and can be put at the perfect height for each child. 

Towel hooks can be put at the child's height. Even toddlers can learn to hang up their own towels or bath robes. 

Wall hooks can be placed at the child's level to hang coats, backpacks, or even things like aprons or brooms in the practical life area.

Temporary hooks are useful for hanging things in the kitchen like aprons or the child's broom or dustpan. We can also use temporary hooks like this to hang artwork at the child's level.

I've found these Command strips useful for hanging frames for artwork in toddler areas. 

If used horizontally these could be useful shelves for a young children's space. 

More shelves potentially for a children's area. 

These are the larger shelves, in a children's space these could be used horizontally. 

Thrive in Family Life shows how to use this storage unit to make a children's wardrobe. All you need is to add a dowel or tension rod to hang clothes from. It looks the perfect height and size for young children. 

At an incredibly low price! 

Children's climbing frame for an outdoor play space. 

We know hardware stores have swings and lots of other outdoor play options. 

If you are looking for a clam shell for outdoor play, this is an affordable option. 

I bought this last week and my four year old loves it.

A child-size table for outdoor sand and water play. 

These are adult paint rollers but they can be fantastic for big art projects. 

I love this display box for storing or displaying collections. 

Paint chips/samples. Useful for tons of art and craft activities. 

If you go into Bunnings don't forget to pick up their free magazine, it has lots of good images for children's cutting and pasting work!