Our Infant Room

“The tiny child’s absorbent mind finds all its nutriment in its surrounding. Here it has to locate itself and build itself from what it takes in. Especially at the beginning of life must we therefore make the environment as interesting and attractive as we can. “ – Maria Montessori (The Absorbent Mind)

We set up Montessori spaces for our son from birth.  He has also been given a lot of freedom of movement from birth and the result has been very good gross motor skills, body awareness, confidence and independence. He is very aware of his capabilities and doesn’t take uncalculated risks. I really believe these have been largely due to the environment. I have shown his spaces during the symbiotic period. Those spaces were temporary. Because we were not in our home for the first 7 weeks of his life, we created small but temporary spaces to meet his needs. Once home, he spent most of his time in his room, and because it was prepared for him, he had freedom to move. I just observed and made simple modifications to the room when needed but never really got in his way or tried to help him and he figured it out. So let me show you his room!

Welcome to our Montessori Infant room. I wanted to put a book shelf in the room but didnt want to take up space so I used this wall space behind the door. He is now able to reach the lowest shelf at 10 months.

Welcome to our Montessori Infant room. I wanted to put a book shelf in the room but didnt want to take up space so I used this wall space behind the door. He is now able to reach the lowest shelf at 10 months.

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Shelves and Gross Motor Development

Once my son started slithering, he would find his way out of his room and try to find us. He started spending more time in the living room and so we set up another shelf for him in the living room.
Slithering out of his room to find me

Slithering out of his room to find me

Around this time, we started the weaning process and he was also sitting comfortably. We would put him in front of the shelf and let him play. There were usually two to three items in the cubbies. A treasure basket and another one or two items. The red ball stayed on top of the shelf.

New areas created in the living room. You can see the independence in these pictures. Moved from the blanket to the shelf and when he was done he came to us. These pictures were taken over 47 minutes. Note: Once he started pulling up (same week) he never went back to the blanket and preferred to stay by his shelf so that area was removed.

New areas created in the living room. You can see the independence in these pictures. Moved from the blanket to the shelf and when he was done he came to us. These pictures were taken over 47 minutes.
Note: Once he started pulling up (same week) he never went back to the blanket and preferred to stay by his shelf so that area was removed.

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