Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Nurturing the Years of Wonder
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Subject Topic: Montessori environment in limited space Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Erin
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Posted: June 12 2007 at 10:37pm | IP Logged Quote Erin
Over here Kristine is gleaning wonderful ideas on how to set up her new room in harmony with Montessori principles. Whilst I am over there gleaning lots of ideas for when I build my new room I have a current different situation.

Currently we live in a very small house and the only space I have is one tall boy dresser in the same room as our dining table and lounge room. Does anyone have suggestion on how to manage Montessori 'shelves' in limited space?

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Mackfam
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Posted: June 13 2007 at 7:00am | IP Logged Quote Mackfam
Could you purchase one of those rolling food service carts and roll it in and out of a closet or bedroom at certain times of the day. Rolling bins could work too, but the food service cart seems ideal because it is more open and the items would be very accessible. You could keep the cart out for the "learning times" of the day and then, roll it away out of sight before Daddy gets home. If your dh is handy this could be home-made to suit your needs out of a lovely wood, just adding rolling casters to the bottom. You could have a pvc tube (painted a pretty color of course ) attached to the side for holding your rugs - then all the rest of your space can hold your trays and materials. Maybe you could use your large dresser as your rotation zone holding materials "in waiting?" Just an idea...

If not this, you may have to start carving out some creative spaces - a hallway? in your bedroom?

Not sure if this has helped at all.

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Angel
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Posted: June 15 2007 at 7:26pm | IP Logged Quote Angel
I'm trying to figure out how to do this, too. Our house isn't particularly small, but I don't have an entire room to devote either. And I'm using cabinets with doors instead of open shelves for the most part... although this makes me nervous.

I'm thinking that one of the ways I might deal with the closed door problem is to take pictures of the contents of each shelf or drawer, pop them into a laminated pouch (or something) and hang them on the outside of the cabinet so the contents will be a little more visible. Or maybe I'd put the photos in a binder that the kids could look through to choose their work.

In a small space, I think you'll probably have to rotate the materials more. Do you have any wall space available? I'm putting up some hanging organizers for brooms and other room care tools, and I was thinking that I might put magazine racks on a different wall for folders of various kinds -- either to hold the kids' written work or to hold folder activities.

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AndreaG
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Posted: June 15 2007 at 9:40pm | IP Logged Quote AndreaG
I think I might do the photos in the binder idea. I have only one 3-shelf bookcase to display work - so I have to rotate often. What happens is that I don't rotate and the shelves get cluttered and stuff gets forgotten in the closet. I am actually thinking a binder divided by subject with photos of all the available works would be great! Simpler would be just a checklist- like those available online but customized for the materials I actually have. Then I could check off things as I put them out so that I could see what needed to get into the rotation.


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