Montessori Toddler: On Our Shelves This Week (Three-Years-Old & Eighteen-Months)

I hesitate to share shelf work, as I feel the true value of Montessori parenting is lost when too much focus is placed on work and our fixation with accelerating learning, but as this is one of my most frequent questions, I thought I'd share a roundup of Jerome's favorites today.

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In my experience, my young children are best served with a lot of freedom to explore our home and to seek the motives their minds and bodies need in the environment. This means a lot of running down the hall, stacking the couch cushions, and free play.

Benedict finds himself work such as transferring all the extra mason jar lids and rings from one container to another, and testing how a found stick fits into the handles of the pots and pans stored in our island. I will often develop work for him based on how I see these motives being met.

Prepared work is gathered together on shelves near their table. There are always different puzzles available here and developmentally appropriate works for each boy. They are more likely to use the materials on this shelf when I am present, although they are free to use anything I have out for them whenever they would like. 

For Jerome at three-years-old:

A few matching tiles from a memory game (I've linked a great multi-cultural one that has been great for talking about diversity) | the Beleduc Body Puzzle, which has been a really good opportunity for learning new vocabulary and talking about his body | a pegging work with clothespins and a tray to develop hand strength | a miniature Perfection Game | spelling bird puzzles | the sandpaper letters we are currently working on |  a sequencing activity | and a mammal picture matching game using the Safari Toob animals. 

For Benedict at eighteen months:

The diy coin box | the posting game he continues to love and use every day | some animals from the Safari American Wildlife Toob, which he will explore and we talk about together | a toothpick posting work | a simple color sorting work which I will assess over the week to see if he is ready | an object to picture matching work using small found objects and printed pictures of them

Recently I have also been making sure I always have at least one or two art trays available for Jerome to freely choose, and will always adapt what he chooses to involve Benedict if he is not napping. This week I organized a few more than usual, as I have noticed Jerome has been more attracted to art-works than the others I have had available to him - we are definitely out of the puzzle phase he was in for a good chunk of time.

Craft kits from the dollar store set up in a tray | a bingo dabber fine motor craft | playdough and letter stamps to match the phonetic sounds we are working on with the sandpaper letters | and some hole-punches with shiny paper which will be really good for hand strengthening.

{The sweetest little spiders hanging in our playroom window. This art tray had so many components: opening a plastic baggie, sticking, placing, gluing, cutting paper and string, hole-punching, and threading, I really enjoyed watching him so independently do each part.}

Curious what else my kids are up to and how we present work? Read about work for a three year old | our favourite crafting supplies|  | how to set up a Montessori-style shelf | building better play habits | how to help your child learn to concentrate

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. I would also love to hear any suggestions for posts you would like me to write about. And if you are interested in following along in our daily adventures, follow us on Instagram where I post daily.



God bless,

Olivia