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penny's vintage inspired montessori nursery

Monkey & Squirrel - Charlotte NC Photographer: penny's vintage inspired montessori nursery

Monkey & Squirrel - Charlotte NC Photographer

I'm Jenn, a stay at home/work at home mama to Penny, wife to Evan, and daughter, sister, and friend to a lot more. I absolutely love capturing beautiful every day moments from behind my lens, and I'm doing my best to do just that!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

penny's vintage inspired montessori nursery


well, i've been meaning to do this for, oh let's see, a year now, and i've finally gotten around to sharing a peek into penny's nursery. we knew from the get go that we wanted to base her room around the Montessori philosophy, which you can read up on a bit HERE. in a nutshell, the room is set up to encourage interaction and exploration, with everything being completely baby friendly. 


her room has changed some since she was an infant. in a Montessori nursery you should try to keep the decor and set up the same for the first year, so now that we're past the one year mark we've added a few more toys and elements for her to engage with that suit her current developmental stage.


we also try to stick to the philosophy that if you surround a child with beautifully made toys they'll learn to appreciate such things at an early age. penny's toys are mostly wooden, or like her schleich animals, so gorgeously realistic that you wouldn't care for a single second that they're plastic!


nothing she owns lights up or makes noise, unless it's a musical instrument, because the thought is that the type of play involved with those toys is already dictated and doesn't give a child a chance to really use their imagination. 


we use a Montessori style floor bed and have all the shelving at her level in her room. the idea behind that is that it not only further encourages exploration around her room, but it gives her a sense of value because everything in here is meant for her. when she's in her room she's not a small person living in an adult world. she can get to just about anything she'd like, and not feel frustrated with things out of her reach.



^^but some things are definitely kept out of her reach because this girl can be quite the destructor^^





the mirror next to the bed is more for the infant stages, but she still gets a kick out of it these days!





and there ya have it!

this is just something that meant a whole lot to us when thinking about how to design her room. it's not the ideal for everyone, but i definitely believe it's worth giving a second (or third) thought to the things that surround our kiddos these days. 


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6 Comments:

Blogger Faith said...

What a lovely space you've created for Penny! Our rooms are so small, so that has cramped our style a bit, but we try to keep their things low for sure, and make our spaces as kid-friendly as possible. Penny is getting so big!

February 6, 2013 at 4:44 PM  
Blogger monkeyandsquirrel said...

thank you so much faith! penny's room is actually quite small too (about 10' x 12'). that's another reason why we're pretty selective about her toys as well. it would be so easy for them to take over every inch of our tiny home!

February 7, 2013 at 11:35 AM  
Blogger Sea and Salt said...

You've done a wonderful job piecing everything together. I think it's beautifully decorated and very tasteful. Thank you for sharing and providing us with ideas. We're trying for a baby. It's been a bit up and down but what I find really picks me up is seeing pictures like these. Very clever design, after all it doesn't have to be ultra extravagant to be beautiful.
Bella @ Sea and Salt
xxx

February 17, 2013 at 5:54 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

you've done such an amazing job. i was a montessori teacher (same as my mama) and this just makes my heart smile. i was so looking forward to doing this for ronin, but we had to make some changes. ronin won't have his own room (we are living with my in laws) for awhile. i'm trying to find ways to do "montessori" things with ronin. hard to place this when you don't live on your own. you did a great job. high five. xo.

February 19, 2013 at 4:33 PM  
Blogger monkeyandsquirrel said...

Thank you so much for such sweet words. We did this all on a rather tight budget, so what you said about it not needing to be extravagant is definitely true!

February 21, 2013 at 10:09 PM  
Blogger monkeyandsquirrel said...

Thank you so very much for the lovely comment! I'm an avid reader of your blog and the fact that you think we did a good job here definitely means a lot to me. One day you'll get to give Ronin the room you dream of, but I know in the meantime you're introducing him to so many other Montessori principles. He's one lucky boy!

February 21, 2013 at 10:13 PM  

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