How We Do Toy Rotation at our House
When I first got into Montessori, I thought it was going to fix my 18 month old's entertainment crisis. Montessori would provide him engaging work, he would be engaged. He wouldn't bother me anymore! I thought if only I could have the money to afford all of the little wooden Montessori manipulatives and have the energy to create all of the DIY screen free toddler entertainment buckets you can find on Pinterest, he would finally cease to be bored.
This podcast episode about toy rotation was a huge lightbulb moment for me. https://www.thekavanaughreport.com/2021/02/shelf-help-ep-43-little-shelf-rotation.html
Nicole, a Montessori mom whose oldest is 10, says that she tried to do the same thing when she started Montessori with him as a toddler. You really should go listen to the episode, but essentially she found that giving him more time with the same few toys engaged him better than trying to grab his attention with novelty.
This makes so much sense! It seems like in all areas of life, religion and parenting come to mind first for me, philosophies that result in frenzied, frantic activity, more often than not turn out to be the incorrect ones.
So I'm excited to not be the activity vending machine anymore.
I'd like to have more age appropriate toys out on his shelves all the time and stick to only those toys, but I don't want to have to help him clean them up every day. I barely clean up his books and bedding as it is. He does have his Duplos out all the time, and he loves those and he plays with them throughout the day, including in the morning before I wake up, which is amazing and beautiful and lucky. I love waking up to the sound of the clinking of high quality plastic.
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