Forest Montessori

Montessori From Birth

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Montessori Shelf at 6 Months Old

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I love preparing Anika’s Montessori work shelf every month depending on her skills and interest. Here is a brief description of each work on the shelf at 6 Months old…

  • Diffraction Mirror Paddles- We are so so lucky to receive beautiful gifts from Every Educaid. Thank you Sarah! Anika enjoys swiping the paddles clockwise and anticlockwise to build her hand strength and muscle control. The reflection in the mirror is enticing. I cant wait to take it outside so Anika can really enjoy its diffraction properties.
  • Basket with objects that roll away slowly- Anika is slithering! These objects that roll away slowly encourage her to crawl. We have been using all of these materials again and again for different purposes from early months. We have our black and white puzzle ball (part of Lovevery gym), teething ball, bell rattle and a soft ball. To be honest, an avocado or a lemon would work just as well too 🙂
  • Treasure Baskets- Anika LOVES treasure baskets. Just random things from around the house with different texture, made up of natural material and that are safe to mouth. We have 2 treasure baskets on this shelf (bottom left), one has different kind of brushes and other one has various wooden objects.
  • Tissue box with playsilks– Anika loves pulling everything! So I did a DIY (video on Instgram) with a tissue box and placed a few playsilks inside that she could pull. Its one of her favorites.
  • Sound shakers- We got these glitter shaker bottles from Every Educaid that are perfect size for little hands. I filled them up with various beans. Anika loves to shake and hear the sound each bean makes.

Montessori Shelf at 5 Months Old

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Anika is 5 months old already! It reminds me to savor moments like these….

Love cuddling her when she is asleep and awake!

Anika is rolling over and has got a lot more mobile on her tummy and her back. So it was time to make some important changes in the room. While Anika slept in the stroller this morning, I quickly re organised her room and shelf. The final look for this month is…

The 2 most important changes in the room are:

  • We replaced our much loved rainbow wool rug with this large thick play mat (PVC and phthalate free). So she now has more space to explore her movements. We found this rug at Baby Show in Auckland last year, but you can find similar one here.
  • I have placed my breastfeeding pillow, near the shelf. We now spend 5-10 minutes every work cycle doing assisted sitting practice. Sitting is the only gross motor skill that babies need to “practice” with help before they can master it on their own and 5 months is the perfect time to start this. To be honest, 2 pillows joined at an angle will work just fine.

For a few more days, her favorite bell chimes mobile stays because she absolutely loves working with it. I am always in the room with her, so it’s ok but generally as soon as babies start to roll over its safer to take all the mobiles out.

Practicing assisted sitting with pillow and my hand

Now time for our exciting shelfie!!

Shelfie at 5 months old

We were very happy to receive some amazing rattles from Sarah at Every Educaid. I love this company and all their beautiful natural and hands-on educational resources. Anika has come a long way with her grasp this last month, so these beautiful rattles are just perfect for 5th month to further refine her grasp.

Thank you Sarah (Every Educaid) for these beautiful rattles + wooden spiky balls for heuristic basket
Top shelf

Top shelf Details:

Wooden bowls- are from flea markets in Bali.

First bowl– Playsilk since Anika is REALLY into peekaboo atm. She is trying to make sense of order permanence.

Second bowl– Interlocking discs. During 5th month a very important thing happens with hands- TRANSFER FROM ONE HAND TO ANOTHER. So if there is only 1 resource I recommend for this age, it would be this beautiful discs designed ideally for hand to hand transfer.

Third, fourth, fifth and sixth bowls- are all rattles from Every Educaid. Anika hardly misses grasping what she wants now. These rattles are much more trickier to hold than her previous ones, which will further refine her grasp.

Bottom shelf view

First box- has willow rattle (from Every Educaid) and wooden rattle from Essential Montessori.

Hug a Planet– We LOVE this cloth ball. It gives a great height and support to work with specially when Anika is practicing sitting.

Skwish Toy– Still a favorite at 5 months!

Montessori Perfect Pacifier– we use it as a teether and its easy to hold and great to gnaw on.

We have another basket with toys in the living room. That includes her all time favorite teether- Sophie the Giraffe and lots of books! Happy Wednesday everyone.

Montessori shelf at 2 months old

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Anika has just started learning to grasp, so I have re-arranged our shelf to include rattles. Top shelf has rattles for grasping. They are arranged and will be introduced from the easiest to the most challenging. Bottom shelf has my DIY sensory bottles and black and white flash cards we use for tummy time, along with skwish toy and bell roller. Our first rattle was the black and white crochet rattle. It fit perfectly in the little hands and Anika loved it. here is a sneak peak…

First black and white crochet rattle at 10 weeks old

The other favorites and easy to grasp rattles have been the Bell Rattle and Wooden Rattle.

I always remember my Montessori mentor, Joy saying “never set a child up for failure.” So here are some signs I looked out for before introducing the rattle:

  • Could hold my little finger for more than a minute at a stretch.
  • Garbs my hair/ cloth with ease.
  • Palms are open more often and the grasp reflex is diminishing.
  • Trying to grab the mat during tummy time.
  • Easily finds her hands to self soothe.
  • Has been observing her hands for a few days.
  • Has been seen practicing the open/ close movements of the hands.
  • Has been consciously batting the mobiles.

Hope you found this useful. Leave a comment with your the signs you observed before you introduced the rattle.