How to Plan Early Childhood Shelves for the Beginning of the Year
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So here we are at the precipice. The next school year is looming or has already begun. How do you know what to put on the shelves for all the incoming students or your homeschool? No matter how many years of teaching is under someone’s belt - so to speak, setting up the room is a special, albeit daunting task.
We want to take a look at the “room” across the early childhood environment.
The Peace Area
A really good trained Montessori guide will always begin with the Peace Area first. Surprised? This is the area that is the MOST needed in any classroom. Especially at the beginning of the year. A seasoned teacher will know that setting up this space in a way that draws a child in and disposes them to greater centering and calmness is key to everyone’s success. The Peace Area has everything to do with the normalization of the classroom. It is so much more than a peace table (in fact we keep our moveable peace table and peace rose in a different spot in the classroom so as not to disrupt people needing the peace space). We hope you look for the most calm space in the classroom that can serve all year as the place that everyone, including adults, can go to center themselves. The things we love to have in the Peace Area at the beginning of the year are:
The Peace Rose Book with a peace rose/talking stick etc.
Emotions cards to help students start naming emotions. We also love these emotions cards from Diamond Montessori
Meditation Cards and I Am Peace book
A Wrist Weight that children with sensory needs can place on their lap or head. You will be surprised how much this gets used. Cut off any straps for the children’s safety.
Centering Activities: Scent Putty and Breathing Cards
Practical Life
Practical Life is a bedrock area of Early Childhood and should be given a lot of your attention all year round, but especially at the beginning of the year. You never quite know what skills anyone joining your class will have. There have been plenty of years when a child has joined who has never fed or dressed themselves before. What are the most important things to focus on in Practical Life? Whatever will help children to become successful in the classroom environment first. Think of all the new little ones coming in if you are in a traditional classroom. What are the fiddly things that are in your specific space they are going to need to know? Does your sink or water dispenser have anything about it that will need a special lesson? Is there something that could be included on the shelf to help children learn that movement? What about the bathroom? Soap dispensers? Anything interesting about these that will need special steps to teach? Can they be represented in a hands-on way on the shelf?
A lunchbox is a very good idea if the children will be bringing lunch from home. How about all the little containers you find inside? We always create our opening and closing tray at the beginning of the year with a ziplock baggie, and the kind of small containers we often find in lunchboxes.
The Dressing Frames should, of course, be included, but if you have limited room you should think through the ones that will be most important - RIGHT NOW. It is certain that the zipper and buttoning frame will be needed for new students, but maybe not the safety pinning frame yet.
The Hand Transfer work, we find, is something to keep on the shelf all year long. We start the year out with larger materials, something like kidney beans and gradually get smaller through the year. Even the most advanced students need processing time after larger works and the Hand Transfer work is perfect for this. Our children's favorite item to transfer are mung beans into slightly large elliptical wooden bowls.
Learning how to use sponges, cleaning cloths, table sweepers, floor sweepers/dustpans, brooms, and pre-mopping skills are all up there in importance in our classroom. We have shelf works that reflect these whenever we can. Getting Children into proper handwashing and dishwashing early is going to be very helpful later on. It would be a good idea to have these works set up at the beginning of the year. We always reorient our returning students to both these works on their day back before the new students arrive. This allows a day to make sure they are showing their new friends the proper way.
Stringing beads, Making Bracelets with pipe cleaners and pony beads, beginning Hammering, Locks and Keys, and Nuts and Bolts are definitely great beginning of the year works. We also have the luxury of a workbench so we also put out sanding to use with the vice grip.
We always put spooning, tonging, and pouring works on the shelf at the beginning of the year, but we like to keep the items inside larger and interesting. PLEASE stay away from “blingy” bowls and let the material speak to the child instead.
We have spent plenty of time in rooms that seem to be owned by interior decorators. Everything coordinates with everything else in the room somehow and it all follows a set theme for the month. While we are certainly not opposed to working from areas of study (and based our Long Range Planning on this), focusing our shelves on a single theme does present a few challenges that we have decided against. Here are at least a few of these:
There are many, many areas of study the classroom can be involved in at one moment. If you choose for your shelves to all be centered around something like the autumn, or an upcoming holiday, you miss the opportunity to bring all the rest of the areas of study into the classroom. Our classroom studies Space/Solar System for a long time (we have learned to just keep it on the shelf) at the same time as we are learning about autumn, parts of the body, mammals, Continents into North America, and the introduction of the 5 Senses. If we decided to center our bowls and baskets around space it might be nice but we would then miss out on all the other amazing opportunities for works that will draw children into them.
You have no idea what children you will have in your classroom for at least the first two months of school, and indeed it sometimes can take a good 9 months to a year for some things to really show up. There are many, many sensitive children who are easily overwhelmed by visual sensory input. If there are flashy bowls, or if there are so many items in a classroom that are a sensitive color for such a child (this brings very much to mind a classroom dressed in Valentine’s red/pink), they may have a difficult time functioning, and especially normalizing, in your classroom. It is good to have things that can break early on, but not all too many. Wood is a favorite all year long but especially at the beginning of the year. We stay away from plastic as much as possible and go for the sturdiest items with a balance of delicate items thrown in. We always purchase our bowls and creamers in quantities of 3 or more to have enough for a spare.
Children should be drawn to the material itself. If a child is coming to the pouring work it really should be what is inside that is interesting. If they have a blingy set of creamers and a boring set inside it will become uninteresting very quickly. If the work is very colorful and eye-catching outside as well as inside they may become visually overloaded. We suggest the containers be lovely and aesthetically pleasing. We have often found the children are very drawn to beautiful wooden bowls, or small vignettes of flowers or fruits on their little pitchers. We stay away from bold colors as the main background unless it expressly matches with the work, such as a small green pitcher used in the Plant Care set.
The materials inside the bowls, pitchers, etc. are what should really speak to the child. Make these items interesting, beautiful, and even sometimes fragrant. Items such as felted balls of different shades, or items from nature are our absolute favorite. Children also adore things that are a miniature version of nature such as miniature vegetables and fruits. We always keep everything in the bowl very similar or the same so that there is less temptation for the work to simply become a toy. We caution the use of miniature desserts for this reason. They are very compelling but generally turn into friends being invited for an ice cream party.
Sensorial Area
In our classroom environment we have plenty of space and so have the full complement of Sensorial materials out all year. If there was one area I would suggest spending the money on - this would be it. Good quality Sensorial Materials are really worth it. Especially in the Visual and Stereognostic areas. If your budget and space are limited these are the materials that should be out to begin with.
Tactile Bars Set - This is an absolute favorite of ours and the children. This also gets used almost everyday in our class.
Movement & Music
This is a HIGHLY neglected area of the Early Childhood, and indeed any other, environment. Our children are not spending nearly enough time outdoors getting the necessary vestibular and proprioceptive movement needed for appropriate growth and development. Making sure there is a robust Movement and Music area only takes one set of shelves and can really improve things for the children in our environments. There are several items we keep in our movement and music area nearly all year because the children love them so well. This is what we like to begin the year with:
Wooden Blocks - we have about 4 types we switch between all year, but only have one out in the movement area right now.
Yoga Mat & Cards - we keep this on one side of the shelves so it takes less room
1 Wooden Ramp Exploration Set - This set is THE favorite item added this last year. It has seen almost constant use. This set helps children get the need for building ramps and rolling items down them without turning to the Sensorial Area to do it. We keep it on the other side of the movement shelf.
Wooden Balance Board - children sit, slide, rock and spin on this work. They need extra distance around them and are never allowed to jump off. When this work is misused it is set in our closet for the remainder of the day. This helps students quickly decide to use it without jumping or running.
1 Chiming Baoding Ball (we do not put both out since they just knock them together), a ringy bell, a Balancing Bird or Butterfly, and Black Heavy Cotton Webbing for personal Walking the Line material. The black webbing is perfect since black ribbon tends to just kind of move all over the place. This allows the children to practice walking the line wherever they can find a spot within the room. It can even be taken out into the hall. The material we purchase is ten yards long, but we cut it down to about two yards. It gets old and tatty after the year and so I start the new year with a new length of it.
A small Steel Tongue Drum - We have thanked our lucky stars for finding this material and bringing it into the classroom. Every note played on this instrument sounds lovely. There are no bad combinations. The children simply need to be taught to play it respectfully. Too loud isn’t even that loud.
Mathematics and Language Areas
This area is very subjective to who you have in your classroom. If you have enough space to have all the math and language materials out at the same time we highly suggest doing so. If you do not have much room you will have to be very in tune with the best known place where everyone in the class is as well as where they will likely be in the next month. We find that the areas that need the most space in any classroom are the mathematics and language areas. You may need to become creative in how you set up these areas. Clear containers that stack may be helpful in getting more material on the shelf. You can also download the complete Pink Reading Series for free by signing up below.
Cultural Areas
We are about to become just a little controversial here. We rarely set up much cultural work in the cultural areas for the first days of school. This is because the new students are certainly not used to being very careful with work and much of what goes on the shelves here is somewhat delicate. We have always appreciated the wise training of a very seasoned guide, and our program trainer, on this subject. Instead we place several “non-lesson”/manipulative works on these shelves and have done so for years and years. There is a very good WHY here. New students tend to just take things from the shelves without knowing they should have a lesson first, then mess them up or ruin them and not know how to put them back. Adults can spend so much time supporting their students in putting things back away that they lose the opportunity for teaching important lessons right off the bat. By using manipulatives and non-lesson materials in these spaces at the beginning of the year it gives everyone plenty to do during the first days of school and supports the guides in training new friends the cycle of work. Taking the work off the shelf to the correct space (floor rug, table), using it appropriately, restoring it for the next person, and putting it back where it belongs on the shelf. We also teach our students to edge the work every time. The attention to detail supports children who are observant and have attention to detail. One of the ways to see that a child is ready for lessons is that they can show improvement or mastery in following this cycle; at least roughly. The manipulatives and non-lesson works are replaced as new lessons are taught during the first three weeks. By the end of the three week period the returning students have all had their fill of these works and the new students are finding themselves much more interested in the regular works on the shelf. We always have a few lingerers that still could benefit from some of these works. In this case we add a short list of names of children still invited to use these works and everyone gets it. There is simply an astounding amount of these works available out there, but we also are careful about which ones we put in a classroom. We try to have nearly one for all 28 children in the classroom. If your class is really small you may wish to have triple the number of works as children to keep them interested while you get the important lessons underway.
Some of our favorites are:
Mathlink Cubes - we simply have them in basket as an open ended work
Toddler Knobbed Puzzles for some of our rising toddlers
As the weeks progress it is important to have a plan while allowing for flexibility. In our classroom we have been working on and perfecting our Long Range Plans for several years. We feel very pleased with the outcome of our work and want to share it with the world. We follow a three-year cycle for all cultural areas. You will see a few things repeated every year. This happens as a result of going over foundational information yearly as well as following the children. They WANT and NEED Space for a long time every year. There are some who will say that this will miss the students who do not stay for their third year, but to us that is a selling point to stay all three years. This allows for students to be immersed in a subject long enough for it to grab hold of the younger ones. If we are changing our cultural work every month the little ones have seen the older ones work on material for long enough that it becomes interesting just as it is time to pull something else on the shelf. Using a Three-Year Cycle Long Range Planning allows children to really become interested in and work with cultural materials, and it has allowed for us to get much more covered in the classroom during a child’s time in our environment. It is also important to note that we also bring items into the classroom of particular interest to particular children. If a child is intensely interested in polar bears and needs to learn about them, we will include work for them even if we are studying reptiles. Flexibility is key in Montessori classrooms. These plans have been created with the continent of origin taken into account. Get yours by clicking the button below and signing up
LONG RANGE PLANS FOR 3 YEAR CYCLE
Art Area
This space is incredibly important from day one. If you think that all the other areas are where you should be seeing the children awaken, but leave this one out you are hugely mistaken. There is a serious sensitive period for art in the early childhood classroom. There is a bit of a soap box here - on multiple occasions we have been in conversations with Montessori guides who have said something like, “I had to close the art area because all my students wanted to do was art.” My dears, this is a clear indication of two possible things. One, the students are in a sensitive period and closing down the art area is the WORST possible choice for the normalization of the classroom. Two, the rest of the classroom may need a work over. Are your other materials speaking to the children or do they need to be changed to fit their real needs? This is the work of the Montessori guide, to see the needs and fill them. We love to see our 2nd and 3rd years all over the art works since we know they will be in the sensitive period for it. As long as we are seeing a balance across the classroom, meaning that the other works are being used by children, we never worry too much about it. The most important things to have out at the beginning of the year have changed since the beginning of COVID. Later on in this post how we are keeping everybody’s art materials differently is addressed. Our painting easel and the paper for it is not kept in the same space as our art shelf. With these works we teach the Care of Paint Brushes and Using an Easel. These are the things we have out on the shelf at the beginning of the year now:
Tray with individual glass cups for holding pencils/markers (we have reused Yoplait Oui yogurt glasses for this purpose)
Free Draw Tray - We teach Using Crayons, Using Markers, and Using Pencils with this work.
Construction Tray
Cutting Works (the cuts go into the collage bags described below)
Practical Art Trays such as
Using a Chalkboard
Using a Stapler
Using a Tape Dispenser
Using a Hole Punch
Using Scissors
Using a Glue Bottle
Using a Glue Stick
These Practical Art items stay out on trays just long enough for the new students to get some work under their belt, then they go to their own spaces on the top of the shelf, or are removed completely since many of them are in their own cubby boxes now. Then we get down to the real work on the art shelf which centers around our Art Scope and Sequence.
Cubby Area
Since the return to school after the lockdown last year we have made an awful lot of adjustments including mitigating the sharing of items like pencils and glue. This has changed how we use our cubby area. Our cubbies are in our classroom and this fact used to really bother at least some of our team (namely Cathie), but now it is really preferred. We have added an extra cubby box on the top of each space so as to hold an “art box” for every child. Inside of this box the child has their individual pencil pouch with colored pencils, pencil sharpener, markers, erasers, scissors, and glue stick. The box also holds the child’s individual water colors, a collage bag (cut pieces, bits of thread they may have cut, beads, sequins etc.). Students who are writing need their own pencil block. More advanced students (pink reading and beyond) will get a red/blue pencil, students who are working with golden beads will get a gold pencil, and students who have reached a certain dexterity will get a glue pen (that really is the bomb!). What we have found is the children are much more careful with their own art/writing items than when we had it all out communilly. We have wasted much less watercolor medium. It is getting used just as often, but the children are taking better care of their watercolors. The number of pencils, writing and colored, gone through in a year is significantly less. They are getting eraser toppers for their writing pencils instead of just throwing them away (even when we would ask them to get eraser toppers someone would come in and cull the pencils without erasers). Students who have reached a level of advancement to get their own of a specific item feel its significance. There have been community celebrations for students getting their own blue/red pencil or glue pen at line time. We will tell you this...we will never go back on the art cubbies. They are staying forever.
On and Off the Shelf Planning
When it comes to planning what should be put on and come off the shelf, some planning can go a long way for the classroom’s success. Our Foresight Planners have a wonderful little sheet that works so well for this. The On and Off the Shelf Planning sheet helps classrooms plan for the future, and is an awesome tool in supporting guides in putting work out when it is needed instead of all in a lump at the end of this or that month. This allows for the smoothest flow of a Montessori Early Childhood Environment. The On and Off the Shelf Planning Sheet from our Early Childhood Montessori Guide PLanner is this month’s Freebie for you!
ON AND OFF THE SHELF PLANNING
And if you are looking for a more in depth planning, records and observation resource, that includes the On and Off The Shelf Planning sheet, you can get 10% off ALL the Montessori Guide Planners right now with code: BACKTOSCHOOL
Wrapping It Up
The first 6 weeks of school are the most important. They are the bedrock of the entire year. If there is something the children really need to focus on, such as wiping down the sink, tucking in every chair, edging work and so on, it must be taught consistently until they have the skills down and then keep at it throughout the year because they will regress with every three-day weekend or holiday break. Never take for granted the power of Line Time. If things are not going very well (getting too loud or children are becoming rowdy or silly) call for a quick “Class Chat”. Sing a couple of songs, practice a bit of silence and then go back to work until it is needed again. Children who are not yet normalized will not be hurt by this, and normalizing/ed children should be able to opt out of any line time for the entirety of the year if they are engrossed in their work. Never cut those guys short if at all possible. Let their little brains work and concentrate! That concentration, my friends, is the golden egg of Montessori.
We wish you all happy preparations and a wonderful new school year!
Loves,
Cath and Foresight Montessori
