Our Montessori Based Home

With the upcoming holidays, I thought it’d be the perfect time to share our approach to toys and playful learning for Harrison.

We knew that we did not want Harrison (and his future brothers and sisters hopefully…) to grow up with a ton of toys and “things” — not only does it create unwanted clutter, but we believe it also stunts their creativity and creates certain expectations we don’t want them growing up with.

In the past couple months, we have slowly started to introduce a Montessori based learning approach for Harry. “Montessori is a method of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play. In Montessori classrooms children make creative choices in their learning, while the classroom and the teacher offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process. It gives great structure to our days, and really focuses his attention on specific skills and toys. “

To organize his learning and playroom space, off our living room, I put together two low wooden bookshelves, where Harrison can easily grab the toys and books himself — everything is safe and at his eye height and each skillset toy gets it’s own place. The plan is, once he outgrows/masters each toy and kill, I will replace with a new, age appropriate toy, and put the older toy in storage or donate. I want to ensure his play area does not become overrun with toys and “things”.

For Christmas, we have already decided on a few special gifts we are giving Harry for his first Christmas, and are urging family and friends who have asked what to get him to respectively stay away from toys, unless they are classic, learning toys (no lights/sounds) and instead purchase him thoughtful keepsakes and books. Our hope is that as the holidays go on, he will continue to get a small number of very special gifts from family and Santa, and will not grow up expecting piles and piles of gifts that are unnecessary. We want to have family-based holiday traditions, and enjoy the holidays with eachother, instead of stressing about the growing pile of outrageous toys under the tree. Of course, we want Harry to have a nice and magical Christmas, but we don’t believe he needs endless gifts to do so.

Here are some of Harrison’s favorite toys (for 7-9 month age range) and items on his wishlist from Santa…!

Xylophone

Or other simple musical instruments

Soft & Textured Balls in a Basket

Corn Flakes or Miscellaneous Kitchen Items in a Safe Ziploc Bag

To explore new feelings and sounds

Stacking with Color & Shapes

While the wooden geometric stacker is a little bit old for Harrison now, we love that this will grow with his learning over the next couple years to build his cognitive skills.