Montessori First Birthday Gifts

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The reality is the best first birthday gift is your time and attention. That’s really all they actually want. Knowing that though doesn’t mean I was going to skip out on birthday gifts for Y. I took this as an opportunity to get some of the items I have been wanting to get him anyway. Below I am sharing our Montessori-aligned first birthday gifts.

His big gift: Audio Player

Edit: We originally got the Jooki player. We realized it didn’t work for us so we are returning it and switching to the Tonie which we are waiting for. I will share a full review and why we made the switch once we have tried the Tonie.

For my son’s big first birthday gift we got him a Jooki player. This is an electronic so it might be a bit surprising! Though it obviously isn’t a Montessori material I do not think it is misaligned with Montessori. It might not be found in a Montessori classroom but I do not believe Montessori is inherently anti-new technology. One activity that was recommended in my Montessori teacher training was using a CD player. I think this is better for a young child since it can be used more independently. We generally steer clear of toys that make noise or light up but I loved the idea of him being able to independently play music. I like that it is screen-free since we are avoiding screens for now.

It works as a simple posting activity that should be at his level and he gets independent control of his music! Y loves music and I do not play it enough. We got it with the figurines which he should be able to place on the player fairly soon. I’m sure it will be a learning curve but I am excited to see him interact with it.

The Jooki will allow us to preprogram some of his favorite music and he will be able to choose what to play. I will do a full review of the Jooki as a first birthday gift when he has had a chance to really use it.

Schleich Animals

I feel like this is another Montessori first birthday gift list surprise since the Schleich animals are plastic. The thing is realistic is a priority in Montessori and these plastic animals are far more realistic than you will find in wood. Yitzchak learning how animals actually look is way more important than the material.

Many people choose to start with a barnyard set since they are the animals their children see the most in real life. We live in New York City though so I got an African animal set fitting with the theme of his first birthday, Wild One. I put a few of the smaller ones on his cake as decoration. Anyway, Y is probably more likely to see these animals in the Bronx zoo than he is to see cows.

These animals will be used for language work and as he gets older for pretend play.

Instruments

Y loves music as I mentioned above. The drum he got for Chanukah is one of his favorite toys so I decided to expand his collection with a toddler music set. I wanted a set that seemed more real (not a xylophone shaped like a llama as tempting as a certain one was). I particularly wanted a xylophone but figured I would get him a bigger set with cymbals and some shakers as well.

I believe he will love this gift and I am really excited to see him expand his musical repertoire. Now that he is clapping I cannot wait to see how he interacts with the cymbals.

Play Silks

Since his birthday theme is Wild One I got him a couple animal print play silks from Sarah’s Silks. I know he will not use them for pretend play yet, but I figured they would be pretty and could also be used for peekaboo and other games like that. I also wrapped some of his gifts in them.

Odds and ends

I got him a few other odds and ends as well: some bath finger paint, some bubbles to blow with him (he was fascinated by them, by the way), and a waterproof bath book. We asked people coming to his birthday party to bring their favorite children’s books with a note written inside the cover.

Functional Kitchen

This is actually his biggest gift but it is from my mom, not me so it is listed below. I am going to share more information on it later but it is an Ikea kitchen with real running water into the sink and it will be used for preparing snacks and being involved in the kitchen. I cannot wait for him to get to use it! It will also store his kitchen stuff which will be awesome given that we have limited cabinet space. He just got it but he immediately fell in love with the running water.

What I didn’t get him

You might notice I didn’t really get Y much for shelf activities. The animals will be on the shelf but I didn’t buy any classic Montessori materials for his Montessori first birthday gifts. Since we get Lovevery every couple of months just about all of his shelf activities are covered there. In the future when he is more excited about opening gifts I will probably wrap some of our Lovevery materials but right now since he isn’t too into opening gifts it didn’t make sense. Some great first birthday shelf activities I would recommend though are: a ring stacker, a coin drop box (and other posting activities), a one piece puzzle, and ball tracking drops.

I also didn’t get him any furniture since we already have furniture. However, if you don’t already have, a couple great big Montessori first birthday gifts are a learning tower and a Pikler triangle. A small table and chair are also nice. We love our Sprout floor table and weaning chair.

What do you think? What were your favorite first birthday gifts?