"This is the most fantastic place to purchase toys, furniture, and anything else you could need for thoughtful play. " -Maze Kadish
This One Year Old Montessori Box is a beautiful collection of Canadian-made toys designed to promote focus, confidence, and imagination, compiled by a certified Montessori teacher.
Each piece is designed to support a child's development from 12 months-36 months+.
Same day pick up available from Tuesday to Saturday.
"This is the most fantastic place to purchase toys, furniture, and anything else you could need for thoughtful play. " -Maze Kadish
This One Year Old Montessori Box is a beautiful collection of Canadian-made toys designed to promote focus, confidence, and imagination, compiled by a certified Montessori teacher.
Each piece is designed to support a child's development from 12 months-36 months+.
The One Year Old box is designed to support your child's development from approximately 12 to 36 months.
This Block Set is perfect for children of all ages. At 12 months old, start with introducing only 5 blocks. Around 15-18 months, children begin to explore stacking a small number of blocks. This block set can be used to develop many skills, such as stacking, sorting, and matching.
Our Wooden School Bus with Peg People promotes imaginative play, which develops around 18-24 months. Children practice removing and replacing the peg people to develop fine motor skills and the pincer grasp.
Our Wooden Slotted Box with Chips is a popular Montessori material that is introduced at 15 months. It is great for developing fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and patience.
The Wooden Shape Sorter Puzzle challenges young children around 24 months old. Manipulating puzzle pieces using a knob helps babies develop their pincer grasp, as they use the tips of their fingers to hold the pieces. This motion strengthens hand muscles and builds on the coordination needed for writing later in early childhood.
Our Mouse and Cheese is great for developing hand-eye coordination in children around 2 years old. Threading and unthreading the rope helps to build critical neural pathways that are the basis for future complex actions.
The Sensory Tubes are used to develop the tactile, visual, auditory and olfactory senses, language skills, fine and gross motor skills, concentration and focus, visual discrimination skills, self-regulation skills and more. They are very versatile and will be used for many years!
"The Montessori Room curates the most beautiful children’s toys. I have now ordered or referred friends to the site a few times and every experience has been a positive one. I really appreciate their carefully selected collection and emphasis on sourcing Canadian-made products. The four car pull train is such a hit with our niece and nephew and will, no doubt, be in the mix for a long time! Great customer service, too. Highly recommend!"
—Jennifer Gleed
"Great selection of items! I bought the Munari mobile and the tummy time animal cards and my baby loves them. Excellent customer service."
—Diana Ojeda
"We purchased the winter bundle (pikler triangle and rocker) for my two kids ,who are 18months and 4 years old, this winter and it has saved us during lockdown!!! They both play with it daily and love it!
The customer service is also amazing. They answered all my questions in a prompt manner and the women working there are super friendly! Highly recommend buying toys there!"
— Jessica Berman
" It always feels great to order from a company that works hard to ensure the highest quality items for your children! Their products are so well researched, their staff are so knowledgeable and know how to run a great business!"
— Maze Kadish
A Montessori approach is an amazing way to help children develop:
Natural curiosity about the world
Love of learning
Independence
Confidence
Critical thinking skills
And it does this in a few simple ways:
1. Less Is More
“The child who concentrates is immensely happy.” - Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind
While some Montessori materials can be expensive, the beautiful thing about Montessori is that less is more. This allows you to invest in fewer high quality items instead of piles of plastic toys.
Maria Montessori and other researchers have found that children learn through repetition. Performing the same actions over and over help establish neural connections, cementing a concept in a child's brain.
To encourage repetition and keep the playspace to feel less overwhelming, you can setup a Montessori shelf with a limited amount of activities:
For infants (under 12 months): place 1-3 toys on the shelf at a time
For toddlers (12 months and up): place 3-6 toys on the shelf at a time
You can also encourage your child to choose just one activity or toy at a time, placing it back in its place before choosing a new activity. This helps children focus and prevents them from becoming overwhelmed by a room cluttered with toys all over the ground.
2. Follow Your Child's Interests
This concept is so simple but it helps your child develop a true love of learning. If your child shows interest in something, whether it be birds, the beach, or even ice cream, provide them with opportunities to explore that interest.
Don't feel the pressure to create the perfect Montessori-themed shelf for every interest. This can be time-consuming to regularly organize. As parents, we already have so much on our plate!
It can be as simple as getting books from the library on the topic, exploring the topic out in the world (i.e. going for a walk to look for different kinds of birds, taking binoculars and a bird identification book along), printing out some information on the topic from the internet and talking about it, or doing a simple craft related to that topic.
For babies and young children, it can be as simple as giving your child the freedom and time to explore. Dr. Montessori observed that children 0-6 are “sensorial explorers”, which means they want and need to explore the world with their senses.
When they’re under 3, these “interests” will more likely be the development of different fine and gross motor skills - stacking things, climbing, nesting objects into one another, etc. When you notice their interest in a certain movement, simply provide more opportunity for that movement.
For instance, if they are regularly using a set of nesting cups, offer sets of tupperware that fit into each other or pots, if they’re strong enough to lift them.
3. Teach Care For the Environment
Montessori believed that a child's environment is a key component to learning. Yes, there are more strict ways to set up Montessori in your home but if you're just getting started, don't stress about the details.
What's important is that your child learns to respect and care for their things and the things in their environment.
This can simply be reminding them to handle their toys with care, watering the plants, cleaning up after a meal, or making their bed.
4. Sit On Your Hands
This one is so simple. It means don’t intervene until your child asks for help or becomes overly frustrated, once you’ve modelled or demonstrated a skill.
This gives them the opportunity to become more independent and enjoy the satisfaction of doing something for themselves.
I will warn you though, it sounds simple but it’s actually quite hard in practice!
With kids and busy schedules it can be easy to jump in and do things for them - dress them, make their plate of food, and clean up their messes - but there's so much to be gained by allowing children to do things for themselves.
Next time your child is working on a task, whether it’s your infant reaching for a toy or your toddler putting on their shoes, simply sit on your hands or count to 10 in your head. Wait to intervene until they become visibly frustrated or ask for help.
Can I buy any of these items on their own?
Who choose the items in this box?
Catherine Lannaman, a MACTE-Certified Montessori teacher, ECE, and all-around amazing educator has assembled these boxes, as well as the write-up that goes along with each item.
Are all the items in this box made in Canada?
Almost! Everything except for the slotted box with coins was made in Canada.
How do I use these items?
We've included a short write-up for each item in the box, including the benefits for each item, as well as instructions for when and how to introduce each item.
Does these items have any chemical finish or paint on it?
The school bus and mouse and cheese have no finish. The blocks are finished with an FDA-approved food-based oil. The slotted box with coins is finished with a toy safe clear coat and the colour matching set uses toy-safe water-based paint.