These handmade gifts for toddlers (or preschoolers) are perfect when you want to give a child a gift that’s a bit more personal, meaningful, or special.
Want an “If You Made a Million” Activity to do with your kids or students? Try this penny-cleaning Montessori work. With extensions for art & science.
In our house, the playroom is for imagination, for open-ended toys, for free exploration. We have dress up clothes (mainly play silks and scarves), building materials (wooden blocks or legos), musical instruments, and other pretending toys. In the rest of the house, the kids tend to gravitate toward helping with real-life chores, like cleaning surfaces…
Get your kids in the kitchen and make these delicious crispy Greek potatoes!
Lately, my daughter has been more into Real Kitchen Stuff. Wanting to help wash, peel, and cut fruits and veggies. Stirring and pouring. Wearing her little apron. Sweeping and cleaning spills. And standing inside the refrigerator, door open, scanning for snacks. So I figured it was time for a fully-functional toddler kitchen.
Part of why the “twos” can be so “terrible” is because these quick-growing toddlers are starting to realize they're their own person, and they want autonomy. It's almost as if they're saying… Don't TELL me to wear that blue dress. I want to wear a green shirt with a yellow tutu! And I want two…
What is Montessori? Maria Montessori created a framework for education which focuses on independence and freedom within boundaries, “following the child” (respecting the child as an individual, with unique personality, strengths, and preferences), and a carefully prepared environment. Classrooms are mixed-age, so that children can teach and learn from each other, and teaching younger children…
One way to save on a lot of frustration in the toddler years is to encourage the independence these little people so fiercely desire. When the toddler feels as if, “I can do that,” instead of “The world is intended for people much bigger than I am,” there is less struggle and angst in daily…
One of the things my husband and I decided to do as Anneliese’s second birthday approached (it’s today!) was to change her room around a bit, adding a “big girl bed” for her, and a floor bed for Joey (so hopefully he can take some naps in there). I had found this great twin storage…
I’ve had the Montessori baby room tour linked in the sidebar of the blog for…forever. But we haven’t even been living in that house for the last year and a half! And lots of things have changed with Anneliese’s room. Plus, she’s a toddler now, not a tiny baby. This weekend, my husband and his…
This handmade Matryoshka project took about a week of evening sketching and painting, but the labor of love was well worth it! A little rainbow nesting doll set for my daughter was the result, and I hope she loves playing with it as much as I loved nesting dolls when I was a kid.
Here’s another little gift I made for Anneliese. I haven’t really made much of an effort to hide them as I made them, because she’s a year old and doesn’t really “get” Christmas yet, so she has already seen them and has been VERY interested in playing with them. I’m excited to set them up…