Montessori 8-month Shelves

I finally got around to setting up Téa's shelves.

We have been presenting treasure baskets to her for a while, but now that she's increasingly aware of her surroundings I have felt like a shelf where we can properly store her materials is overdue.

This was my first attempt.  I thought I'd start simple.

It evolved, rapidly, to include more materials.  I think we now have a good balance of materials for discovery and for fine motor skills.

Here is what is on her shelves:

A basket of balls of all different textures, including some fruit!

Coloured bottles from this post, stored in a see-through box (from our Sophie the Giraffe teether) to play off the idea of transparency -- I read this post about packaging materials in a way that is interesting for discovery.

Nested mixing bowls, and a collection of metal spoons of various sizes and textures.  Mixing bowls make a great Montessori nesting set because they are all identical except for their size (compared to commercial nesting/stacking toys that come in different colours, shapes and textures).  I like to store the metal spoons here to draw some similarity between metal objects, and because the spoons are great to hit the bowl with -- the different sized mixing bowls produce different pitches.

A glockenspiel with various objects to hit it with.   We were gifted this one.

Our egg + cup, still her favourite grasping material.  She can sometimes put the egg in the cup with prompting.

And lastly, I reconfigured our stacking rings to make them simpler and easier to handle.  We have the very affordable IKEA MULA stacking ring, but I felt like the entire set was too many.  So I've placed three of the Ikea MULA stacking rings on a small cd holder -- I think three is enough for a start, and I like that they are at least similar in colour tone.  I use the dowel rod from the MULA stacker for bigger rings that are easier to hook onto the rod.  Téa mostly likes to pull the rings off the rod, but sometimes she's able to hook them on.


Téa is standing but not crawling yet, so she always grabs the materials on the top shelf but rarely looks at the materials on the bottom.  She's not disinterested in the materials on the bottom shelf, as she'll happily play with them if I pull them out.  I've thought about rotating the top and bottom shelf materials, but at the same time I want everything to have its rightful place.

How do you use your Montessori work shelves?  Do you give your baby complete freedom on what to choose, or do you guide her to different materials?  Do you pick up the materials and then move her to another spot so that she can concentrate on her work as opposed to wanting to pull other materials off the shelves?

Starting Elimination Communication at 6.5 months

I had read that elimination communication was most successful if you started between 0-6 months, so when the six month mark passed, I began to despair.  I had always known that I wanted to do elimination communication from birth -- I had imagined myself with a newborn, lying diaper-free on my lap, calmly observing her for signs for needing to pee or poo.  But although I tried this, her pees were quick drizzles that were hard to catch, and although I'd catch an occasional poo in the potty, she was an infrequent pooper who would go for more than a week and then explode without warning.  And then other circumstances, like our struggles with a low milk supply, prevented me from taking her to the potty right after a feed. 

When I read of other Montessori families (here and here) that introduced the potty later on, with great success, I took heart.  And at 6 months, suddenly the stars began to align.  She was able to sit up straight, which made the potty a lot more comfortable for her than when I was holding her awkwardly over it.  She was pooping everyday on a schedule -- at roughly 9am, with telltale farts -- so it seemed stupid not to put her on the potty when I knew there was a poo coming.  And once I did, it was very much "Why didn't I do this earlier?"  Very quickly we had all our poos in the potty (with only one or two accidents per month), and a pee in the potty every time I changed her diaper.  She still pees in her diaper, but the fact that she associates eliminating with the potty is a win.  As is not having to clean up a poopy bum or wash poopy diapers!

Inspired by (but coming too late) to the Montessori home challenge, I have just begun to set up a toilet station.  A basket for our lovely cloth diapers and covers, another basket holding a lap blanket and some reading material while she's on the loo.  And tissues for wiping her bottom, currently propped up on a little cardboard box.  I think this warrants setting up some low shelves in the near future for all her toilet materials, so that they're visible to her as we go through the routine.

As I am writing this we are going through a small "potty regression" at 9 months. I used to catch 99% of the poos and perhaps 70% of her pees, but in the past few days I keep having misses.  I don't know the cause -- maybe it's because we're teething, having sleep regressions, or generally being more active, going out more, missing our scheduled "potty-tunities."  But it doesn't matter.  Elimination communication is stress-free; I never keep her on the potty longer than she wants to be on it.  I'll do the baby sign for "diaper," tell her I'm going to change her, do the baby sign for "potty" and ask if she'd like to sit on it, and if she's in a bad mood we call it off.  And in the future, when she has a miss, I'll remember to tell her "Ooops, let's go in the potty next time."

We mostly potty on a schedule, when we wake up in the morning, and before and after we go out, but I have bookmarked this list of tell-tale trumps and hope to be more aware of her signs as time goes by.

Clothing Treasure Basket

Dressing a baby in the winter is quite a ritual, so I put together a clothing treasure basket for Téa to introduce her to her winter clothes.  We bundle her up in quite a lot of items of clothing, so I thought it would be nice for her to explore what they are herself!

Here we have her knitted pants, a onesie, a homemade winter baby bonnet and her socks.  I also keep a diaper cover in this basket sometimes.  How are you bundling up your babies for the cold this winter?  

The Outdoors

We are on holiday in Arizona and we've been spending our entire afternoons outdoors, in Téa's grandmother's beautiful oasis garden in the desert.  We lie back and observe the racing clouds, the many birds twittering in the treetops, the delicate lacey pine needles framing the sky.  When she gets restless, we walk around and feel the flowers, the ferns, the large dangling fruits, and smell the leaves on the lemon tree.  We rattle the windchimes.  And I tell her incessantly about it all.

The best toy

These Russian nesting dolls are really the best toy for Téa at 7.5 months.

She was immediately drawn to the bright, pleasing doll's face.  The dolls are just the right size for small hands to grab and handle.  They roll away if she fails to grab them, which is great for crawling practice.

After I showed her how you can take them apart, I put them back together loosely so that she can open them up herself.  She likes to bang the pieces together, and to try to fit pieces against each other, telling me "da-da-da-da-da" while she's at it.  Learning to put the dolls together and nest them will be a great puzzle for her to solve when she gets older.

I also like to assemble the three largest dolls separately (I've hidden the smallest ones) to show her the concept of size. Children are drawn to difference, and Montessori materials call for a set of materials to be exactly the same except for the concept/variable being taught.  Most commercial nesting cups vary in both colour and size.  These nesting dolls are really perfect because they are (almost) identical.

We also get to explore the concept of "in" and "out" as we take them apart or put them back together.

This set belongs to her uncle, so I'm going to have to look for a set for her very own.  Any recommendations?

Perfect for Little Hands

We discovered by accident that these whole walnuts fit just right in a baby's hands, when Téa grabbed them off our kitchen table.  So we filled up a big bowlful for her to play with.  They make nice rattly sounds, are fun to bang together, and are a lovely natural material to chew on.  A perfect introduction to sensory play at six months!

Which natural materials do your baby play with?  What have you found is just right for small hands?

Our first treasure baskets

These are our first treasure baskets.

Scented teas from a David's Tea sampler box.  Babies have a strong sense of smell and so often we forget to stimulate this sense.  I've been giving Téa these to sniff since she was two months old.  Our favourites are strawberry rhubarb, orange, organic ginger and a nutty mix.

Fabric of different textures in the same colour.  We happen to have a lot of pink hankerchiefs and hand towels on hand, so I put together a basket with a cotton weave (with a lace edge), double gauze, terry cloth, microfiber, rayon, organza and tulle (not shown... that piece got lost!)

Brightly coloured ribbons.  This happened by accident -- I noticed that Téa liked to reach for the measuring tape when I'm sewing for her, and I found these shiny ribbons from India while I was rummaging for notions, so here we are!  This is a favourite.