I'm Annie Hays, and I'm excited to share a how-to guide on creating child-centered spaces. I have nine years of experience working with young children in a Montessori setting, with a Bachelor's degree in Human Development & Early Childhood Education, along with a Montessori teaching credential for ages 3-6.

When preparing a child-centered space, our goal is for the child’s environment to be:

1. Accessible 
2. Functional 
3. Inviting 

We create moments of learning by setting up provocations for a child to be drawn to an activity, explore the material, and achieve their self-directed goals. Then, we sit back and observe as this valuable play builds up confidence in their capabilities. 

My first step is to sort materials by function, always keeping these three tenets in mind: how can I make this functional, accessible, and inviting to this particular child?

Jump To:

• A Note About Breakable Materials
• Why Shelf Work?
• Areas in a Classroom
• Art & Practical Life
• Geography & Peace
• Botany & Zoology
• Math & Sensorial
• Language & Penmanship
• A Few Final Thoughts

A Note About Breakable Materials

Trusting children with beautiful things helps even the youngest ones learn to treat materials with care. When we are kindly consistent and lovingly firm, fragile materials help busy hands become gentle and purposeful. Young children become much more intentional with their movements when they have to be delicate and precise.

Of course, we keep reasonable expectations of the way children experiment with materials, make little mistakes, or even test limits. It’s important to minimize our gasps and reactions, as well as shameful responses when something inevitably breaks. But when this happens, children witness the natural consequence of rushed or mindless movements, coming to understand the importance of intentionally caring for our things.

Since young children notice the tiniest details, we opt for wood, ceramic, or woven materials that showcase true beauty. There are many affordable options at thrift stores and second-hand shops, and looking for tiny treasures for tiny hands makes preparing the environment so much fun!

Why Shelf Work?

When toys and lessons are down low and accessible, children often help themselves to complete their self-directed tasks. After they are done, putting their things away isn’t such a big ask when there is a place for everything and everything is in its place.

In a functional and orderly environment, children can see where each lesson goes on the shelf, and reach their next choice with ease. Both at school and at home, putting things away is an expectation that we always follow through with, until it becomes a habit. Building community is at the heart of what we do, and that means we work together to take care of our things.

Sprout Washing Station

Areas in a Classroom

• Art & Practical Life 
• Geography & Peace 
• Botany & Zoology
• Math & Sensorial
• Language & Penmanship 

Whatever space you are preparing, our goal is for children to have the freedom to choose their work and play, find focus and concentration as they engage, and achieve their small yet important goals.

In Montessori, we sequence materials on the shelf starting with the most simple activities, gradually increasing in difficulty as we move from left to right.

As children move through the environment, our job is to ensure every detail is functional for their tiny hands. We try to avoid hiccups along the way that might disrupt their flow of concentration. We select trays and baskets that can be carried to a workspace successfully and choose something with just the right amount of challenge so they can accomplish their task with the materials provided. We offer support as needed but step back to let them see what they are capable of when the environment is prepared specifically for them. 

Art & Practical Life

These activities are designed to strengthen hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, concentration, and independence. It helps to isolate each activity on a tray, including all of the tools they will need to accomplish that particular task. This allows the child to carry the whole activity to their workspace (at a child-sized table, work mat on the floor, or chowki) and have everything they need within reach. Color coordinating the dishes and materials helps keep each activity organized and appeals to the young child’s sense of order. 

On the practical life shelf, we invite children to try tasks that adults often rush to do for children, such as pouring, scooping, zipping, self-care, and preparing food.

We offer mirrors at the child’s level to help them practice blowing their nose, place dustpans and towels in a predictable place to clean up any spills and provide other invitations to explore their capabilities within daily life tasks.

Rather than using pretend tools or pretend food, try offering child-sized but functional tools, such as a screwdriver, hair brush, or strawberry slicer. After modeling how to use it properly, watch the child’s concentration and task persistence grow as they learn what they are capable of!

In art, working with the whole hand comes first, such as using playdough, stamps, or dot markers. As the sequence continues, we offer tools with increasing difficulty, such as using a glue stick, shaped hole punchers, crayon rubbings, painting water with a large brush, using paint with smaller brushes, followed by using scissors.

Whatever art materials you have available, try separating them into trays to make the activities accessible, functional, and inviting. Having a small stack of paper that goes along with each art project helps them get it ready for the next person when they are done! 

Geography & Peace

This curriculum is designed to help children learn that we are all part of one interconnected whole, helping them become conscious and contributing community members. Adding a globe at the child’s level for them to spin, examine, and study teaches the elements that the Earth is made of, and helps children understand early on that we share our home with many other living things.

Our goal is to fill the environment with life, including plants all around the room and a class pet, if possible, inviting children to help care for them. Adding real photos of the architecture, landmarks, cuisine, traditional clothing, and animal life across continents appeals to children’s curiosity about the real world around them.

We also love collecting beautiful, cultural artifacts for children to explore, some for display, and others to examine, organize, wear, and play with. We introduce the flora and fauna native to each continent as we study, and focus on exposure to a variety of cultures around the world. 

Here are the continent boxes from my classroom at Soaring Wings Montessori School. We bring them out as we study the continent, and keep them on the shelf for children to learn from! My favorite moments are when an artifact or two gets mixed up, and a child notices the mistake. “Silly panda, you don’t live in North America! Let’s put you back in Asia…” 

In the peace corner, we offer activities for emotional regulation, as well as conflict resolution with peers. I love including a mirror at the child’s height, and laminated photos of children with a variety of emotions (happy, sad, calm, silly, frustrated, lonely, shy, overwhelmed, peaceful, etc.) to help them label their feelings. Try offering a basket of fidgets, a wooden labyrinth, a weighted beanbag, and of course a pillow to make it a cozy place to relax.

This can be a wonderful space for children to retreat when they are dysregulated (although it is never a time-out), a place to spend some time after completing a big project, or just a fun area to spend some time whenever they are in the mood. 

Conflict often gets a bad rap, since we just want children to “get along.” However, every healthy relationship where everyone is being truthful and standing up for their needs will lead to disagreement. Conflict is an excellent learning opportunity for children to stand up for themselves, set boundaries with friends, and find a compromise.

Every Montessori classroom has a peace object, often a rose, that indicates when it is your turn to talk. When children find themselves in a disagreement, they are encouraged to have a peace talk where they each have a chance to share how they feel, and what they need. Adults often facilitate these talks as a mediator, but sometimes children find a solution all on their own. Try finding something special that the child can hold when they need others to listen, (since ours is the turquoise class, our peace object is a turquoise heart), and as they resolve conflicts, coach children in setting boundaries, such as:

“I’ll play with you when you listen to my ideas too.”

 “Right now I need space, but let’s have a snack together later.”

 “I don’t appreciate being shouted at. When you speak to me softly, I will listen.” 

Although this generally occurs in a classroom between children, don’t underestimate the power of introducing a peace object at home, too! This can add some really helpful structure to finding a compromise between parent and child. 

Botany & Zoology

Children are innately curious about the natural world around them, and young children are in a sensitive period for tiny objects. You may have noticed a collection of tiny woodchips or pebbles that seem insignificant to us, but very important to a young child. Let’s lean into this interest, and prepare these collected nature treasures on a tray with a magnifying glass, as well as realistic animal figurines and real photographs as we introduce each family in the animal kingdom.

For instance, we display a variety of feathers for children to examine and compare when studying birds, we offer a basket of snake skin for children to gently touch when we study reptiles, and we often take a trip to a local farm when we study mammals. 

Learning about the needs of plants (and caring for them around the classroom) helps children connect with living things and find awe in the world around them. Try collecting nature treasures together, and conduct research according to their interests. In Montessori classrooms, we prepare activities to dive deeper into the study of seeds, roots, flowers, fruits & vegetables throughout the year, conducting science experiments and learning the real, scientific terms of each living thing as we go. 

Math & Sensorial

When preparing academic materials in the classroom, making them inviting is key! Minimizing clutter and using woven baskets, wooden trays, and ceramic dishes to display activities in sequential order makes all the difference. When you notice something is collecting dust on the shelf and is rarely chosen by your students, try displaying it in a new basket or a different spot on the shelf to see if these small details appeal to the children. 

Our goal in the sensorial curriculum is to help children refine their senses, and invite them to compare and contrast tiny details in an effort to prepare their mathematical mind. Concrete experiences with counting are paramount in the early years as they memorize numerical symbols, and eventually learn to understand math in abstract concepts. These materials aren’t usually rotated out throughout the year, because there will be children at different stages of the curriculum at all times.

We utilize beautiful baskets and trays and switch out counting objects seasonally to keep this curriculum area fresh and exciting! (i.e. counting rose petals for Valentine’s Day, pumpkin seeds around Halloween, or glass gems that are so inviting for young children to hold.) 

Language & Penmanship

Welcoming children to the world of reading is an exciting opportunity for educators. Using visual discrimination exercises, sound games, alphabetical symbols, and tiny objects, our goal is to make language learning playful. We rotate the options frequently so that materials are fresh and exciting, with a variety of things to try.

Preparing this part of the classroom can be tricky since there is a wide variety of skill levels in an Early Childhood environment, so we need to have many different materials available. We try our best to minimize clutter and highlight hands-on experiences with letters and sounds. In Montessori, we use tiny objects to help children break down words into phonemes. As they begin to memorize alphabetical symbols and their correlating sounds, we introduce blending and offer them tiny objects to spell with the Moveable Alphabet. Encoding words often comes first, followed by the ability to sound out phonetic words, and decode the messages all around them! 

In this curriculum area, try separating language skills from penmanship skills. Some children have the hand strength to copy over anything with beautifully legible penmanship, but they struggle to remember letter sounds independently. Other children begin reading seemingly effortlessly but get frustrated holding a writing utensil to write their names.

When we isolate these two skills, we can focus on the child’s biggest challenge. Do they need to scribble and draw more often with rock crayons and stubby chalk to get in the habit of using a proper pencil grip? Or do they need to repetitively trace the sandpaper letters, (studying 3 at a time)  to memorize what sound each letter makes?

Assessing the child through observation is our job as educators. As we pin down which skills the child needs to master next, we prepare the environment in a way that calls to the child: making it inviting and fun, accessible and within reach, and of course, functional for them to continue their growth and learning. 

A Few Final Thoughts

As you prepare your own child-centered space, it might be easy to feel overwhelmed. Remember that you can keep it simple, sort things by function, and make adjustments as you observe your child! Don’t be afraid to change materials or activities to better meet their needs. Observation can guide decisions as you prepare a space for children that invites exploration, concentration, and most of all, meaningful play. 

Preparing the environment is my first task as a Montessori guide, and it gets easier. I love curating spaces to be accessible to young children, functional for their little hands, and most of all, inviting to their curious minds. Email me at annie.hays.tinyhumans@gmail.com to book a consultation in your classroom or your home environment, and follow along with my journey on Instagram @tinyhumans___. Happy preparing!