A Semi-Montessori Approach

Over the weekend the girls requested to share a room. Their rooms were directly across from each other before and they played in both rooms, but they wanted to sleep in the same room and we couldn't see why not. Erika said it was the best day of her life and Audrey jumped up and down yelling, "Yay!"

So here is their new shared sleeping room.



I have been drawn to the Montessori philosophy for a long time and have been subtly using it's ideas with the girls. With the change in rooms, I decided to incorporate the ideas for fully. This is definitely just a start using what we already had in the home, but I wanted to share it now so that you can see the process as it unfolds.

This reading nook isn't really Montessori inspired, I guess, but it gives the girls a small, calm place to get away and be alone. I placed it next to a bookshelf where I want to create a small nature center. Right now there is a bird's nest, magnifying glass, and binoculars. I also want to add some math materials here.



To the left of the shelf is a desk which I was ecstatic to find at a garage sale last week. I wanted this to be a desk and self care station in one, so I added a mirror, hairbrushes, and clips for each of the girls. I would love some kind of narrow organization center to keep scissors, markers, glue and such here too. The beloved typewriter is next to the desk, though Erika still needs help setting it up because it's so heavy. That basket of stuffed animals and babies to the left of the bed really needs to go, but both of the girls like playing with the babies, so I will have to set up an organized pretending area for them somewhere.





On the wall next to the desk I put the doll house with all the furniture and dolls in a bin on the bottom shelf. I saw this great room on Ohdeedoh and remembered that I had nature cards similar to the ones used in that room, so I placed them around the girls' new space. The ones next to the doll house are all about space. I put some calming ones in the reading nook, a few around the mirror, and some more above the table on the other side of the room.



This table is a great for so many things and we get a lot of use out of it. I wish that our dining room was larger so that it could be the girls' dining table, but it serves well as a work space too. Other things I tried to do was place the art work at the kids' level, remove clutter, and create centers that were simple and easy to clean. These rooms both still need a lot of work and I will update as the work gets done.