Are you looking for ideas or inspiration for your Montessori home? I love taking a peek into other family homes but I don't love scrolling through social media. Today I've picked out a few gems that I hope you'll enjoy! This is a wonderful example of an infant movement area incorporating a weaning table, low shelves with age-appropriate materials, a mirror, a movement mat and a butterfly mobile. The highlight for me is the artwork at the child's level just above the weaning table. Perfection! 😘 This is an infant area for a five-month-old. Low shelves, age-appropriate materials, engaging low... Read more →

Image: Joy Kids (AU) I have written many articles about how we store children's books. In a Montessori home, we want our children's books to be easily accessible but also ordered and presented in a way that is attractive to the child. For a young child, we may put books in a basket or in a forward-facing bookshelf. You can read my recommendations on forward-facing bookshelves at How We Store and Display Children's Books - at 2-3yrs. By the time the child is 4 to 5 years old, maybe earlier, they are wanting access to many, many more books and... Read more →

Today I want to share some Montessori spaces from around the world. Blogs and books often show one person's or one family's perspective and I love to provide a peek into other people's homes, even if it is through the lens of social media. My intent is to inspire and motivate - not to induce feelings of envy or inadequacy. I hope you take away some useful ideas and enjoy these spaces as much as I do. This bedroom for a two-year-old (in a dreamy new build!) is fun and bright. Simple shelves provide storage for the toys and the... Read more →

Are you a woodworker or have one among your family or friends? With some skill many Montessori materials and child size furniture can be made by hand. Hand made and homemade mean you can have control and surety over the woods and finishes used. It's not always cheaper or easier to DIY but the results are often more beautiful! Here are some woodworking DIYs that I've been loving. As always be careful with safety and securing necessary furniture to the wall. Above is Montessori Toddler Wardrobe using Birch. There are plans for a similar Montessori Toddler Closet at instructables workshop.... Read more →

My favourite Montessori rooms are cozy, simple and well organised (a place for everything). Creating Montessori style spaces at home isn't always easy. If you are looking for some ideas and inspiration, here are some rooms that I'm loving. This room is lovely. The colourful rug and blue walls are beautiful. There is simple forward-facing book storage, developmentally appropriate toys and materials, and, artwork displayed at the child's level. I can also see The Dancers Mobile hanging at the top. This room may be staged, it is a promotion for a furniture collaboration. The furniture is well designed, uses natural... Read more →

Today I want to share some beautiful children's spaces. All of these have Montessori components including spaces that promote order, calm, concentration and independence. Above is a super comfortable room that would be suitable for a crawling infant, a toddler or even a younger preschooler. From the bed, the child can easily see the forward-facing bookshelves and from there they can see the work/toy shelves. The large rug makes a soft but firm surface for crawling or sitting on. The amount of books and materials looks spot on too, often we (including me) overcrowd and overfill the children's shelves. This... Read more →

Would you like to hear about a new range of furniture designed by British architects and handcrafted from Japanese cypress? Aromon has just launched beautiful children's shelves, tables and chairs, and I think you'll love them. I have a discount code for you, at the end of this post. "Inspired by the Montessori education method, our furniture and bespoke spaces provide a healthy, safe environment to encourage exploration and independent play whilst stimulating the senses." - Aromon. The design of Aromon furniture is unique and so is the wood that they use. Aromon products are made from sustainably sourced Japanese... Read more →

Have you considered using the Sprout Montessori Wardrobe but haven't felt ready to make a decision? I frequently recommend the Sprout Wardrobe to families, especially those in the US. We have a lot of Sprout furniture and we have always been really happy with the size, proportions and quality. A child-size wardrobe allows us to store the child's clothing in a way that is accessible to the child. It allows the child to select their own clothing and also to put away their own clothing. We limit the amount of clothing accessible so the child has an age-appropriate amount of... Read more →

Do you bake often with your children? With my first child, I really had no idea how to bake with a child and I had to try really hard to make it happen. Now with my third child Otto (3yrs), we bake in some way almost every day. Sometimes he bakes alongside me on his kitchen helper at the kitchen counter. A couple of times a week I will also invite him to bake at his baking table. A baking table can be any low, child-size table. For a young child, we could use their weaning table. It just means... Read more →

Last week I published Montessori At Home - Birth to Six Months which included activities to try at home. Today I'm following up with some examples of Montessori style movement areas for children from birth to six months. All of these areas are Montessori style or Montessori-inspired. Most of these are designed by parents not teachers, all of them are in real homes with real budgets and real constraints. There may be some aspects that are not perfectly Montessori, but that is what makes these spaces so interesting, it's how we all manage, it's how we all apply the Montessori... Read more →

Learning happens in every area of our home. Perhaps most of the learning including language and maths happens in our kitchen or outside. We have a children's table on our back deck where we work when it's not windy, but we also have this little corner of shelves at the end of our lounge/living room. This is what I call my three-year-old's 'work area'. I want to share this space with you as compared to examples I've seen online, this is a very simple set-up. We don't have a playroom or a study and that's ok, we do the best... Read more →

Depending on the design of your home you may want to consider placing your infant's movement area in a shared family space. The movement area can consist of a moveable play gym, a soft rug or mat with some toys, or perhaps a wall mirror and Montessori style mobiles (visual & tactile). The benefit of having the movement area in a shared space is the child can observe and hear their family members going about their everyday lives. The child can move, play and rest at their leisure while still feeling that they are a part of the family, not... Read more →

Montessori children's wardrobes come in all shapes and sizes (#montessoriwardrobe) but the purpose remains the same. The aim of the Montessori children's wardrobe is to support: independence - the child can easily access their clothing. order - everything has a place, the child can easily see their clothing, the child knows where everything goes. choice - the child is able to choose from a small selection of seasonally and developmentally appropriate pieces of clothing to wear. problem-solving skills - in selecting the clothing and in self dressing the child will encounter problems to solve. child's sense of self - the... Read more →

We are seven days into a 14 day Covid isolation period (we can't leave our home, due to Otis being a close contact). So today I vacuumed and generally tidied Otto's (3yrs 9mths) room. It looked so pretty I thought it was time to take a few pics and share the new layout with you. The last time I shared his room, he had just moved into his 'big' bed. Our home is split over four levels. Otto's room is on the fourth (top) level, and his other work shelves, art shelves, and toys are on the first (bottom) level.... Read more →

Have you ever wished someone would come to your home and help put together your Montessori-style playroom? I was once talking to a Montessori teacher friend about how small our home space was and she took a look around and came up with so many options I hadn't thought of. It's amazing what a fresh set of eyes can see. When my friend Ceinwen showed me her children's workroom (pictured above), I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. Ceinwen and her family recently moved into a gorgeous Bondi apartment and they have this workroom just off the kitchen. It's an... Read more →