Product Updates
How Sprout Learns
Just as children learn and gain mastery through practice, observation, and repetition, Sprout learns through experience as well. Every one of our products is carefully designed, prototyped, tested, and released with the intention of filling your needs and the needs of children. However, there are some things that can only be learned through real experiences; therefore, we sometimes learn of unforeseen needs after a product has been released and used in a variety of homes. We always welcome and collect feedback and suggestions on how our products can be improved. We then assess our products and the suggestions so we can adjust products to better fit your needs.
Below are some examples of how some products have changed over the years.
Previous Design Changes
The Weaning Set - In Sprout’s early days, much of our furniture looked very different than it does now! For instance, our current Weaning Table and Chair set started out as a set of brightly colored chairs and tables. As Sprout grew over the last 10 years and found the Montessori Method and community, this design was altered to better fit the aesthetic and practical needs of our customers. Now, both the table and chair are adjustable, promote proper eating posture, and take up less space for even the smallest of Montessori homes.
The Toddler Tower - What started as the Kitchen Helper in 2019 has evolved into the Sous-Chef Toddler Tower through a series of many design adjustments. Some of these have been very small adjustments like increasing the size or position of the back panel tabs by a quarter of an inch to make assembly easier. Other changes have been more noticeable like tapering the legs and overall shape for stability and aesthetic. The original design had no handles for moving the tower, then one was added to the back panel, then the handle was most recently removed in favor of two handles, one on either side of the tower. Most of these modifications were based on feedback from our valuable customers.
The Toddler Tower was originally designed with an extra step for additional functionality. Over the years, as we have spoken with our customers, we learned that the additional step did not provide the functionality we thought it did. Additionally, we determined that we could reduce the overall price for our customers if we stopped producing the extra step. The safety and functionality of the Toddler Tower remains the same without the step.
The Climbing Triangle - We released a Climbing Triangle in 2020 that was carefully designed with safety in mind while still allowing for the convenience of a folding triangle. Due to worldwide material shortages and supply chain issues, we looked into a way to make the triangle more efficient and less costly to produce. A new triangle was released in 2023 that has a slightly smaller footprint, is lighter weight, has sturdy tapered legs, and is more affordable at checkout.
The Birch Montessori Floor Bed - This floor bed was originally designed with slats made of individual pieces of wood. Since that time, we have expanded our capabilities to include working with solid wood such as oak. Using solid red oak, our designers designed a stronger slat roll on the Floor Bed instead of the individual slats. This allowed us to reduce production costs and mitigate assembly frustration and ensure a more durable bed for your family.
Warranty
Our 5-year warranty guarantees quality craftsmanship and materials, and covers wear and damage due to normal use. With this warranty, we commit to ensuring that you have a product that will last. To ensure that we can continue to make improvements to our products and launch new ones, our 5-year guarantee does not cover product replacements for design updates or new products.
So, rest assured, if you buy the first version of a product or the fifth, you are getting a high-quality piece of furniture that will last. If you do experience any quality issues that would be covered by the warranty, please contact our Support Team.