As a preschool teacher I have always know a little bit about the Montessori values and beliefs but it wasn’t until we found “floor beds” yesterday that I learned more!!! We begin thinking about transitioning Lola into a toddler bed when we were at IKEA at the beginning of the week and saw a cute “kiddi bed” but we didn’t end up buying it.  After we came home we began looking into beds for the big 2 year old. We found quite a few online but then we ran into the Maria Montessori concept of a floor bed on Pinterest.

Brett has been getting super excited about projects lately so off Lola and Brett went to the hardware store yesterday morning! It didn’t take much to convince him.  They came home with $15 worth of 2 x 2 wood pieces. He worked on it from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and it was complete for Lola’s nap time.  From my understanding, the concept of a floor bed is to develop independence of the child (even infant).  We are only in the beginning stages of this transition but so far so good.  She actually fell out of it yesterday when she was sleeping (and again today as I write this!) I could not stop laughing watching her in the monitor (because obviously it is a very small fall which is part of the benefit of a floor bed) but she sat right up and crawled back in bed!  I will keep you all updated of our experiences with this floor bed as we continue transitioning!

Since looking into the Montessori practices I decided to make Lola a little pantry in our kitchen.  The ideas of Montessori is to help kids develop real life skills along with independence.  I’ve been wanting to make a “self service” area for Lola’s snacks for a while but this was a good motivator to get it created.

This morning I cleared out a cupboard for Lola’s goodies.  I moved her plates, cups, bowls and silverware into the cupboard with pictures.  I want her to be able to access these things herself for meals and snacks.  I would also like to be able to teach her how to put her own dishes away in the near future.

For the snacks in her pantry I just used all the things we had in our pantry and loaded them into snack sized baggies from Target.  Some of the things I used are Goldfish, animal crackers, sunflower seeds, raisins, cheese-its, pretzels, graham crackers, just to name a few! I am excited for her to have some more independence because I believe that is what she is ready for!  We are potty training (which is going great) and transitioning to the big girl bed!!! She has been excited and awesome through it all! Wish us luck! HAHA!

XOXO,  Emilie