Our Montessori Shelf at 18 Months
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Time is flying. I feel like I just wrote the blog post for 17 months. We had a busy month around here. We’ve had some good play this month though. Since we were gone a good deal of the month (no big trips but visiting both sides of the family for a couple trips each) I rotated at the beginning of the month and kept it pretty steady after that.
18 months has been my favorite month so far. We are amidst a language explosion and I am loving it. He is enjoying anything that involves learning new words so language has been a real focus this month. This is a good time to remind you that very little of our daily time is spent on the shelf. So much of our day is spent doing practical life tasks (cooking, etc) and spending time outside. Both of those spaces are also fantastic places for language learning.
On the top of his bedroom Montessori shelf there is a color-matching activity. I was not sure how he would do on this. There is a wide range for color matching so I was not expecting him to get it right away. However, I thought he might still enjoy putting the peg people in the pots. He enjoyed it tremendously and has been able to successfully color match these three colors. Next month I may introduce some new colors. We got ours in our gifted Tiny Earth Toys box (code homeandontheway15). I cannot find the exact one separately, an available one is here.
Next to it is a basket of scrunchies. These are used for self-dressing practice. Socks are a challenge and this is a good intro into how you have to pull the sock open to get it on. It is much easier than socks themselves. He also used them on the stem of a pumpkin this month, threading them on there.
The last thing on the top shelf is a shape sorter that came in our Tiny Earth Toys box. I have only introduced three shapes that are all on one side. Next month I will likely introduce the remaining shapes. Shape sorting has been an interest but has still been a challenge.
On the bottom has been a favorite activity this month. This is a 3D puzzle from Lovevery. I haven’t seen anything like it elsewhere and it is really great. It has two sizes of rods and two sizes of holes for the rods. It creates fantastic control of error because if he puts small ones into the bigger holes he is left to figure out at the end what to do with the bigger ones. This is where the learning happens.
Finally, on the bottom there is an animal matching activity from Lovevery. This can be easily DIY’d using Schleich animals and photos (you want realistic, not cartoon photos). I had spoken about DIYing it for months and didn’t get around to it. The reality is that’s not my thing but it very easily can be done. We are at the very early stages of matching right now. He sometimes matches them correctly but often doesn’t. However, we use this material together for language work using the Montessori three-period lesson. He has learned the names for all the animals and he identifies them in both the picture and the figurine. We also use a soft animal matching activity that hangs on the door. I love this for more movement work. I will sit across the room and ask him to bring me an animal. He totally loves it and has learned lots of animals this way. A similar activity could be done with magnets on a fridge.
Next to the shelf is his ball run which has been a definite favorite this month.
Living Room Montessori Shelf
Our living room Montessori shelf has some open-ended toys on top: Magnatiles and cars. I have found he has become a bit more into open-ended toys recently where previously he had been more interested in close-ended toys (did you know Montessori materials are actually generally close-ended? I share what makes a toy Montessori here).
On the bottom of his Montessori-inspired shelf we have a pounding toy. This is from Plan Toys but we got it in our Tiny Earth box. He has enjoyed pounding these last couple of months. Pounding was the number one hit last month but he continues to enjoy it now.
Next to that is a stacking toy from our Lovevery box. He has been really into this one both putting the cylinders together separately and stacking them on the board.
