What does “Montessori” Mean?

Hi there! Are you a new parent? Expecting? A friend or relative trying to learn more about taking care of kids? When it comes to all the different respectful and mindful “parenting styles,” “parenting techniques,” “parenting methods,” “parenting philosophies…” whatever people call them… it can definitely seem a little overwhelming. When I was pregnant with my daughter, all of the different terms for the various parenting styles were definitely a little confusing and overwhelming. I came across “Montessori,” “Waldorf,” “Attachment parenting,” “RIE parenting,” etc… so many different things to learn about! I decided to do some more reading and research.

Let’s talk about the Montessori philosophy!

So, what does “Montessori” mean? Is it a type of education? I’ve heard of Montessori schools, so what does Montessori have to do with parenting?

In the world of gentle and respectful parenting, many parents learn about different educational, learning, and parenting philosophies to incorporate them into their everyday lives. We all want the best for our littles, and as parents, we are continuously learning and growing right alongside our children. You can be trained as a Montessori teacher, and I’d like to point out that I am not a certified trained Montessori teacher. However, based on what I’ve learned about the Montessori philosophy, and using my personal experience, I’ve written a helpful guide to explain more about it. I hope this post helps provide a little more clarification!

To begin, the term “Montessori” and what it means…

According to nw-montessori.org, “Montessori is a method of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play” based on the discoveries in the classroom, observations of children, and leadership of Dr. Maria Montessori. The focus of the Montessori learning approach is centered around playing to learn, fostering independence, and creating an environment that uses natural materials, is developmentally appropriate, and incorporates learning real-life skills. Activities are child-led, which means children choose to participate in activities and tasks based on their own development, interest, and curiosity instead of being told what to do or play with. Classrooms and playspaces are minimal, inviting, and open-ended. It’s all about understanding that young children learn and grow naturally through play. If you’re wanting to incorporate the Montessori approach in your home with your family, you’ll want to focus on creating spaces with an intentional and prepared developmentally-appropriate environment, allowing activities to be child-led, and keeping your home as child-friendly as possible to foster your kiddos’ growing curiosity and independence!

“Play is the work of the child.”

Dr. Maria Montessori

So, how do you create a Montessori environment in your home?

It’s important to be intentional and mindful of the children’s environment. You’ll want to keep your kiddos’ spaces (bedroom, playroom, bathroom, etc.) minimal, clean, quiet, inviting, developmentally appropriate, and aesthetically pleasing. Try to create a space free of distractions, such as a loud television. Plastic, musical, battery-operated toys seem fun, but try to keep those very minimal. Instead, it’s important to provide playthings that are open-ended and not distracting or overstimulating. Focus on using natural and non-toxic materials, such as wood, wool, woven baskets, soft cotton, non-toxic paint, etc. instead of a lot of plastic, since plastic is not a natural material. Add some small plants, too, if you’d like, so the child can help water and care for them.

I like to use this example as a guide… imagine if you were sitting down, eyes closed, and holding out your hands. Someone places some things in your hands… they give you some smooth rocks, a braided basket, a soft cloth, a flower… how do those feel in your hands? Hopefully pretty interesting! Now, imagine someone placing a cold, hard plastic toy in your hands. “Hmm,” you think. “This doesn’t feel as nice.” Then, you accidentally press a button and loud voices or music starts to play. It startles you and you open your eyes. That toy, although it can be fun, was loud and overwhelming. Montessori-type playthings focus on being more inviting, simple, and allow for open-ended play for the child to explore. They are usually made of natural materials, such as soft, warm wood, cotton, etc. They want to avoid artificial noise and music and instead provide minimal or natural sounds. Try to make your spaces neutral, avoid busy patterns on the walls and in the space in general, use simple rugs, and if you can… lots of natural light! Beautiful and warm sunlight is so much nicer than artificial light. Provide some low, safe, and open shelves- such as a white shelf or a natural wood shelf– and have playthings set out on the shelves to invite children to play. You can use trays and small bowls or baskets to keep items together, such as a puzzle and its pieces. Show the child how they can remove the tray from the shelf to play, and then show them how to put it back. Don’t overcrowd the shelves. Keep things aesthetically pleasing and minimal. Try to get down to your child’s level to experience what he or she sees through their eyes.

When it comes to playthings, we’ve loved our lovely Lovevery toy subscription. Every few months we get a new box delivered of developmentally appropriate, Montessori-style toys that are created by a team of experts and researchers. It’s helped take the guesswork out of what kind of playthings to have for my daughter. We have other wonderful toys, like this simple Melissa and Doug dollhouse that my daughter loves, but the majority of my daughter’s play spaces have her Lovevery playthings. The boxes are available on the website, and I also highly recommend the Lovevery block set, which is a favorite in our home, and the Lovevery infant play gym!

When it comes to books, I always recommend open-faced bookshelves. Letting the child see the front of the books is much more inviting than stuffing books into a bookshelf. It draws the child in and allows them to be more interested in the books. We hung “picture shelves” on the wall to create a DIY open-faced bookshelf, which is a popular DIY hack for an open-faced bookshelf. You can purchase low open-faced bookshelves, too, if you want something that isn’t permanent. Make sure your child is able to see and even grab the books on the shelves. I’ve seen some pictures of open-faced bookshelves all the way up to the ceiling. They’re very pretty, sure, but not very convenient or practical. The child can’t access the books or even quite see them. Again, always aim to make spaces child-friendly and have books and playthings accessible to them.

We all know how toys and playthings can build up with kiddos, though. What many families do is a toy rotation. We do a toy rotation in our play spaces probably once a week. I’ll keep extra playthings in some bins on the top shelf of my daughter’s closet. I don’t rotate all the playthings, but every week I’ll choose a few things that haven’t been played with, put them in the bins, and replace them with some “new” playthings (again, not really new, just from the bins in the closet). Or maybe I will take a couple of the playthings from my daughter’s room and put them in her little play corner in the family room. I try to just do little things to rotate things around. That way, it keeps things fresh, and things are explored in different environments, but it doesn’t change the playspaces too much and the things are still familiar (This is also a great idea for your child’s books, too!).

If you’d like to learn more about creating a Montessori home, one of the best books I’ve read since becoming a mom is The Montessori Toddler by Simone Davies. It provides a wonderful explanation of how to incorporate Montessori learning in your home and how to create the most inviting play spaces for your kiddos.

Let’s move on to learning and playing by participating in real-life activities. Young children have a natural desire to help. My daughter has just as much fun following me around helping with little household tasks as she does playing with her toys. I allow my daughter to do appropriate tasks to help me. My daughter is three, so she’ll help fold little washcloths and put her clothes on hangers while we do laundry. She has a child-size cleaning kit, which she just loves, so she can use her own little broom to help me sweep some food that was dropped. Using her learning tower, she’ll help make snacks and meals with me by adding the ingredients, cutting soft things with a safe knife, mixing things in a big bowl… things like that. Anything you can do to patiently and respectfully allow your child to help around the home is wonderful. It will never be perfect- you will definitely need some patience- but it allows the child to feel helpful, proud, and like they are a participatory member of the family. Also, it’s fun! My daughter is so happy and excited to help mommy and daddy. I enjoy her company, and instead of struggling to have her play by herself when she’s just not feeling like it, she joins me and helps me around the house. She’s happy, I’m happy, and she’s building skills while still having fun and participating in real-life tasks.

Again, just make sure to keep things fun and developmentally appropriate for the child’s age and abilities! Allow them to help by choice and gentle direction, don’t ever force or tell your kiddos to do something if they’re not wanting to or don’t seem interested. The Montessori focus is to allow kiddos to discover, learn, and play through their own interest and desire, and that includes those little real-life tasks. Making things into “chores” for young kids defeats the purpose. If I ask my daughter if she wants to help sweep the driveway and she says no, she’d rather color with chalk or find some cool leaves and rocks, I won’t force her to help. I want her to play with what’s sparking her curiosity at the moment. I simply allow and invite her to help only if she’s genuinely interested.

How is that all sounding…?

The last thing I want to talk about is just the home in general. Similarly, with your children’s spaces (such as bedrooms and play areas) you’ll want your home to be clean, quiet, decluttered, and child-friendly. Try to keep the television off during the day and during meals to avoid it being a distraction and being too overstimulating for your child. If it’s too quiet, though, you can have some soft music playing or maybe a podcast. Older children may like listening to some audio stories. In the kitchen, as I mentioned above, we have a learning tower, which my daughter loves. It’s allowed her to be able to help with cooking and anything done at counter height. Again, kiddos love to help. They are tiny humans and want to be a part of real-life activities and see the world as mom and dad see it! So, I highly recommend a learning tower (with supervision, of course!). We have this one, but I’ll link another one here that features an adjustable height option. Along with the learning tower, my daughter has her own shelf in the refrigerator and in the pantry at child height where I put appropriate snacks. She’s able to open the fridge or pantry and get a snack if she is feeling hungry between meals. The Montessori approach also emphasizes using natural materials for dining, as well. Providing smaller versions of glasses, cups, plates, bowls, and silverware with natural materials, such as glass or bamboo, instead of stocking up on plastic plates and utensils. However, to me, glass and toddlers just don’t mix. Do whatever is comfortable for you and your family. In our home, we have children’s dining items and utensils from IKEA that are non-toxic plastic, but have simple colors so they are not overstimulating. Now that my daughter is going on three, she does like to use regular plates and silverware as we do, and we also trust her with our regular glasses and mugs now. Giving little humans opportunities to drink from a cup from a young age is emphasized, too, instead of using those plastic sippy cups marketed towards babies and toddlers. Save those for travel use. As a tip, only pour in the cup or glass what you’re willing to clean up (It saves some headaches for parents!).

During snack time and mealtime, I always make sure my daughter has a small washcloth to wipe her hands. It’s helped avoid those messes from sticky fingers. We keep wet wipes, paper towels, old bath towels, and old hand towels in a bin near our dining area. It’s great to have a “cleaning bin” for those spills and messes that happen as a result of being human! We have an open concept home and the dining area and family room kind of share the same space, so it’s easy to access in both places. I recommend an easy-to-access “cleaning bin” (like some old towels or paper towels) in places where you eat meals or where your child has snacks.

In the bathrooms, I’ve hung small mirrors at child height, and I have those sticky adhesive wall hooks on the wall for my daughter to hang her own hand towel. By the front entryway area, we have a low bench shelf where every member of the family has their own cube for shoes. She’s able to access her own shoes, which she loves! In her room, my daughter has a low dressing rack. I place a couple of outfits, underwear, socks, etc. on the rack, so she is able to dress for the day. I always think to myself, anything I can do to provide a safe, developmentally appropriate way for my daughter to practice independence, I’m going to try to do it.

When I was first learning about the Montessori philosophy, I felt a little (more like a lot) overwhelmed. I felt like I needed to make these big changes throughout our home, and I needed to do everything in the right “Montessori” way. I think many families feel similarly. As with any parenting approach and philosophy, whether it’s Montessori, RIE, attachment parenting, etc, you don’t need to follow it like a script. I made little changes here and there to allow for a more Montessori, or child-led and child-friendly, environment in our home. (Check out my blog post Setting Up A Child-Friendly (or “Montessori”) Home Doesn’t Have to be Expensive) It’s important to be intentional about creating an appropriate environment- an environment that is minimal, inviting, clean, quiet, and developmentally appropriate- but it’s also important to just be intentional about your perspective and mindset. Allowing children to help with patience and guidance and giving them opportunities to explore and foster their independence is just all about perspective! It’s allowed me to take a breath, to take the weight off my shoulders as a parent overexposed to all things “Montessori,” and to just enjoy our home and our life with our growing, curious, and independent daughter.

I hope this provides a little more clarification and inspiration regarding the Montessori philosophy. Again, I highly recommend The Montessori Toddler for more inspiration. The Montessori Baby was also newly released (yay!), so now families can learn about and incorporate the Montessori approach starting at the newborn stage! I love it!

Anyway, I could keep writing and writing about the Montessori philosophy all day, but I’ll end here.

That was a lot, whew! Thanks for reading!

Lots of love,

Anna