Tips for Montessori Spaces at Home

It's that time of month for the 12 Months of Montessori Learning series! This month we are featuring our "Montessori Spaces" in our home. Our family recently moved into a new home and I am having so much fun setting up our new learning spaces. I love how our Montessori kitchen for kids space came together and I also love how our new home has an abundance of natural light. I find these Montessori spaces in our home to be so welcoming. I hope you enjoy these tips for Montessori spaces at home.

Montessori Kitchen for Kids

In the photo below, is a practical life Montessori kitchen set-up for kids to enjoy. It includes a play kitchen (stove), small bookshelf, baskets, child-sized cleaning tools, and food preparation tools. I wish that I could share where I found this simple wooden stove, however, it doesn't have a brand name on it and I bought it at a consignment shop. (Here are a couple of simple play kitchens found on Amazon and IKEA.)

The low hanging art work is from IKEA, along with the simple white frames. I love the art work because each piece of fruit and vegetable is cut in half. This gives a beautiful view of the unique design of each fruit/vegetable with their seeds.

Little Bee actually doesn't use the stove for pretend play. He uses it as a flat surface that is the right height for him to prepare his snacks. For example, he can stand at the stove to peel his banana and then chop it into bite sized pieces.

Little Bee also enjoys helping clean up his spills and messes. He is learning how to use his child-sized broom with a dustpan and he loves using a microfiber dust mitt to pick up liquid spills. When he is older, I will buy him a child-sized mop for cleaning up spills, but for now the microfiber dust mitt works really well. 

I store all Little Bee's child-sized snack preparation tools inside the baskets. Please visit, Montessori Kitchen Tools for Kids for ideas on the tools that we use for food preparation. Little Bee loves to have easy access to his kitchen tools for food prep and also to use for practical life transfer activities.

Family Room Montessori Shelves

In our family room, I have a simple shelf from IKEA where I rotate a biweekly or monthly theme for Little Bee to enjoy. I love to display beautiful themes for the holidays or for the seasons of the year. The shelves pictured below have a mix of several of our themed shelf ideas. To learn more please visit: Montessori Patriotic USA Flag Activities, Montessori Inspired Rainbow Unit, and Montessori Inspired Music for Young Children. 

For more themed shelf ideas, please visit - 15 Montessori Inspired Toddler Shelf Themes.

Montessori Inspired Worship Shelves

The living room is where we have worship every morning as a family. This is a special time where we sing songs together and read Bible stories. On our Montessori inspired worship shelves, we have kid friendly instruments for Little Bee to play while we sing or play the guitar. I also have other hands-on props, on the shelves, to help Little Bee learn the stories of the Bible. For more information about our worship shelves please visit, Christian Montessori Shelves.

Toddler Montessori Closet

Little Bee has a shelf and baskets from IKEA in his closet to organize his clothes. This set up works really well for us and is easy for Little Bee to use. He loves to help put his clean folded clothes away into the labeled baskets. The baskets always look neat and tidy even if Little Bee stuffs his clothes into them. This is wonderful because the clothes don't have to stay perfectly folded all the time.

Little Bee looks at the picture cards on the outside of the baskets to find his clothes to put on in the morning or to find his night clothes to wear for bedtime. For more information on how to put this Montessori closet set-up together, please visit - Toddler Montessori Closet.

Our Montessori Homeschool Room -

In the Unfinished Basement

I will admit that I am very proud of our Montessori homeschool space. We recently moved into our new home and we do not have the finances to finish the basement. The walk-out basement is a beautiful open space with large windows and sliding glass doors to the outside patio. I really wanted to use this space for our homeschool area. A friend of mine said she used painter's canvas to add a quick (cheap) finish to the ugly basement walls. So I gave it a go and this is how it turned out (see photo below.) I also added an indoor/outdoor rug from Target, shelves from IKEA, small child-sized table from IKEA, wire bookshelves, and Montessori materials to create this welcoming educational environment. Both Little Bee and I love this space and use it everyday.
I enjoy the simple beauty of open shelves and baskets for displaying our Montessori materials. In one basket I have several practical life dressing frames for Little Bee to practice his fine motor buttoning, zipping, and snapping skills. On our shelves we have materials that encourage shape recognition, counting, object permanence boxes, fine motor work, pre-writing skills, sequencing and more.

Montessori Continent Boxes

I enjoy finding attractive ways to organize the materials in our Montessori classroom. On the wire shelves in our classroom, I found IKEA boxes that fit perfectly into the space on our bookshelves. These boxes are a wonderful size for storing Schleich animals and other materials for continent work. The boxes have a pre-made place on the front to add a label. I added a colored label for each of the 7 continents to match our Montessori continent map puzzle pieces.

Walking on the Line

Walking on the line is a wonderful exercise for young children to learn balance, poise, and practice their gross motor skills. To learn more about walking on the line, please visit Living Montessori Now and Confessions of a Montessori Mom.

We do not have a large circle rug for our Montessori classroom, so instead I duct taped a "line" around the edge of our square rug. I used duct tape because it is the basement floor and I'm not worried if it damages the floor. If you are going to use tape on a finished wood floor or carpet, it has been suggested that you use electrical tape or painter's tape.

In the photos below, Little Bee is teaching his African animals how to "walk" on the line. Little Bee was totally engrossed in this activity and had so much fun walking his animals from one end of the line to the other end. It was adorable to watch and made me smile.

Work Spaces in Our Classroom

These last set of pictures are the various work spaces that we use in our Montessori classroom. The indoor/outdoor rug is a cozy place to land with a favorite toy. Little Bee has a bamboo mat that he loves to roll out for his Montessori materials and tray work. He also has an art easel from IKEA that he enjoys creating masterpieces on.

I have a wonderful desk from IKEA that I use for crafting and creating Montessori materials on while Little Bee independently plays nearby. Above my desk, I have stored all our art materials that I use with Little Bee for when we have an art project we are working on together.
Beside my desk, Little Bee has one more area to use as a work space. I set up a child-sized table from IKEA with a mirror positioned behind it. This space can be used for art or for fine motor work with the added benefit of a reflective image. It's a lot of fun for Little Bee to see himself working on a project.

So that is all our Montessori spaces that I have to share with you today. Thanks for your visit. Please enjoy visiting the other Montessori spaces in this series.

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama

Child Led Life ~ Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures

Enjoy this 8 part series with ideas for incorporating Montessori education into the home for ages 1-4:

1. Let's Define the Montessori Method
2. 100+ Montessori Inspired Activities for Toddlers
3. 15 Montessori Toddler Shelf Themes
4. 100+ Practical Life Skills with Free Printable
5. Tips for Montessori Spaces at Home
6. Montessori Materials List for 2-4 Years Old
7. Montessori Homeschool Curriculum for 3-4 Years Old
8. Organizing Homeschool Supplies

Follow Mama's Happy Hive's board Montessori Home Set-up on Pinterest.