Our Inspiration:
Remember how I got all excited about reorganizing the bookshelf to have forward facing books, making it easier for the boys to see and select books they were excited to read? Well… it was awesome. And the more I appreciated what a little change like that did for the boys, the more excited and inspired I became to re-evaluate our living space and make it a more Montessori inspired environment. (Read more about Montessori here.)
Jennifer Lee, the director of the Montessori Children’s House of Wellesley, gave an amazing talk at the mother’s forum about how to help our children be more independent at home. Looking at the photos of Montessori based rooms, I was so inspired. Shelves were where children could reach them. Furniture was small enough for kids to read or craft without having to continuously climb up and down. Objects of interest, books, and activity trays were organized, easily accessible, and there wasn’t an overwhelming number of them.
It was amazing. It was the environment I would want if I were a child. It was the environment I wanted for my own kids.
Looking at our living area, we didn’t really have that. We have a day-bed they love to climb up onto and cuddle with me to read stories on, and we have a big area rug with lots of room for building train tracks, these are good. But the other pieces of furniture in the room were a couch and a chair that no one really used. Adults tended to play on the floor with the kids, or relax in our finished basement where our television is. With no coffee table in front of the couch (we wanted room on the floor for the kids to play) it wasn’t comfortable to sit on because you couldn’t put your feet up.
We decided to sacrifice the adult seating in the room to make the space more child-centered. After all, we have a formal living room on the same level adjacent to the dining room where we can have adult seating, and this is the room where the kids spend most of their time. Unlike some families, we dedicated our basement space to our t.v. and socializing area rather than a playroom. That meant aside from their rooms, there wasn’t an area designed specifically for the kids.
Until now!
Our living room re-do:
We sold the couch and chair on craigslist (this funded about 80% of the cost of our re-do), and bought a mini child sized love-seat perfect for the boys to read on. We put shelves to display books right above it, and some child-height display shelves nearby for a few stuffed animals and objects of interest that we can rotate.
We replaced our small plastic kids’ table with a larger wooden one with enough seating for friends (or a grown-up, there’s room so our knees don’t hit the top) to do crafts, puzzles, and other table activities. Moving the couch meant we could place the table in a bright, centralized location rather than having it off in a corner with very little room, like the smaller table had been.
I moved almost all their toys to an upstairs closet, and replaced them with activity trays and three or four toys out at a time that can be rotated. Right now they have building blocks, toy cars, a bag of coins, three puzzles, two stuffed animals, several craft trays with stickers and coloring, and a lock-set out to play with. Picking up is a breeze, because they can easily see where everything goes and put it back into its place.
There’s extra room for spinning, dancing and building now that the adult furniture is gone, the room feels brighter, and the boys are spending more time looking through books and doing puzzles. We’re still working on getting a larger area rug and a different set of shelves, but already I see a difference in how my children use and enjoy the space! I love it 🙂
I’m inspired by and enthusiastic about Montessori parenting, and while I’m by no means an expert, I’m really enjoying seeing the joy and independence even little changes have made for my kids.
