Every holiday season, a river of disposable plastic toys flows off the department store shelves into the hands of our toddlers, and then straight back out into a landfill three months later. They are as cheap and uninspiring as they are forgettable for your little one, and man are they ever expensive!
This year, break the cycle of plastic waste and trendy tedium. Why not make the things you bring your child memorable, educational, and sustainable? Gifts inspired by Montessori philosophy are all about creating playscapes that are fun as well as developmentally enriching. They empower children to move, climb, explore, and encourage the development of meaningful social bonds with others (especially you!).
In addition to being fun, a Montessori gift whispers the secrets of Mother Earth to your child as they creatively interact with their environment. Montessori products are designed with a premium on renewable resources like wood, which is both aesthetically beautiful and places the goodness of the natural world they’re a part of right in their fingertips.
So without further adieu, here are six excellent Montessori gifts for your toddlers to give them a head start on their journey towards a fulfilling and fantastic life!
Little Partners Learn ‘N Balance Set
Little Partners has been leading the Montessori-inspired gifts for toddlers scene for three decades, and the Learn ‘N Balance Set is a fantastic addition. The set features a four-piece hinged balance beam that sits a few inches off the ground. It can be adjusted to make a variety of shapes for your little one to explore, and comes with four multi-colored “stepping stones” as well to add an extra challenge for a bold explorer! This set is just perfect for endless hours of games, balance and spatial growth, and creative exploration.
A Superstar of Early Childhood Development
One of the most challenging and vital skills for toddlers to develop is proprioception, which is the ability to understand where our body is in space and how it moves. It’s a sensory puzzle for a young brain that includes complex concepts like how to apply force, how much, and how to use your joints and angles to get it.
Phew! That’s a lot to think about, but any childhood specialist will tell you it’s oh-so-important that toddlers have a rich and diverse set of activities that develop it. The Learn ‘N Balance Set is one of the best tools on the market for making sure your little partner is not only having a blast, but programming that amazing brain of theirs for success!
Little Balance Box
The Little Balance Box is one of the best, most well-thought-out products we have ever seen, and we have reviewed a lot of them. It’s been featured everywhere from US Weekly to the Today show, and in 2017 it was the recipient of a prestigious Gold Award from the Mom’s Choice Awards.
What makes it so great? Simple: it helps toddlers learn to toddle. The Little Balance Box is a your-child-height table that allows them to safely explore balance and mobility. It’s got silicone feet so it’s both stable and moveable depending on how developed those tiny legs are, but it also won’t scuff your wood floors.
This one really has it all, and best of all it’s free of PVC and PBA materials, food-grade silicone…oh, and that bamboo it’s made of? It can grow nearly 3 ft. a day, so the only one keeping pace with it is going to be your little buddy.
The Essence of Montessori
When it comes to pairing childhood development and empowering experiences, the Little Balance Box is right up there with the Little Partners Learning Tower. These perfections of toddler engineering develop fine motor skills, balance, body mechanics, and important brain development in areas like spatial awareness.
Quiet Book Queen Collections
Every holiday and birthday seems to turn into a tech frenzy these days, and Quiet Book Queen Kailan Carr is quietly bucking the mainstream with her hand-sewn books for young readers 3 and up.
Quiet Books are all about creative parents lovingly stitching interactive books to enrich their inquisitive little ones from kits or templates. Each page is a new world of felt finger puppets, adjustable clock hands, zippers, and so much more. And the best part is, every time is a whole new story!
The Quiet Book Queen herself also organizes book swaps parents can join where each participant makes a page for everyone in the group, and at the end you have a truly community-workshopped project to share with your child. And if you just want to see what it’s all about without going all-in on crafty, no sweat! There are several pre-made books you can purchase too.
Building Books and Community
We love Quiet Books, and they are a fantastic way to get your child away from the screen and into an interactive activity they can actually feel and move. Even better, Quiet Books has built out its community in a big way to bring parents together over Montessori enrichment. It’s a win/win Montessori gift!
Hativity Activity Book
Hativity began when PT and mother of two Shannon Davis turned the run-of-the-mill sun hats her daughters wore into an interactive and sensory friendly focus object. Hativity hats are designed to be used with an assortment of patches that can be mixed and matched to express all kinds of thoughts, emotions, and just plain have fun.
But what do you do with all your patches when you’re not using them? That’s where the Hativity Activity Book comes in. This 100% nylon book lets your child organize and store their patches while creating a little story all their own until the next time they need to get an idea out of their head. And onto it!
Expressive and Sensory Friendly
The Hativity line of products is a great opportunity to develop expression and communication skills, but some children also need sensory space and reassurance. These are designed with both in mind, and are even compatible with essential oils to be as supportive and useful for families with unique needs as they are fun and interactive. Make this a Montessori gift for your sensitive toddler this holiday season.
Bright Littles Conversation Tools
Bright Littles Conversation Journals exploded on the scene during the pandemic when Tara Miko realized there were no age-appropriate conversation tools out there to help her young daughter get the communication skills she needed. A year later a star product of early childhood education was born, and in 2022 Bright Littles won best new product at the 2022 NY NOW show.
These interactive journals and conversation cards help children learn to kindly and honestly express their emotions, as well as foster empathetic listening skills. They cover topics like leadership, safety, and feelings, and will give your 4-and-up a window into a larger world.
Taking Talking Mainstream
There’s a lot we all need to learn to make our world more sustainable and inclusive. Bright Littles is committed to giving our future leaders the tools they need to have age-appropriate engagement with the important social and environmental issues in the world today.
Deluxe Learn ‘N Play Art Center Easel
Picasso had to start somewhere, and if he had one of Little Partners’ easels he would have been in Paris art galleries long before he had his breakthrough! Montessori education is all about developing creativity, and the Deluxe Learn ‘N Play Art Center Easel simply has it all. It’s got a paper feeder to keep those masterpieces rolling off the assembly line, a magnetic dry erase board for sketching, and two shelves with fabric storage bins to make sure those paint brushes and marker caps all stay in one tidy place. Your child will absolutely love the hours they spend in the studio!
A Work of Art
Little Partners knows how discerning a young artist is with their paints and materials, and they have made it their business to be just as rigorous with their easels. Its sustainable pine construction is finished with safe, non-toxic paints and materials that have been Greenguard Gold Certified to be free of over 10,000 chemical emissions and VOC’s. Little Partners is committed to making sure that our beautiful world is still around to be painted when your child is accepted to the Beaux-Arts school in France, and with a lifetime warranty, they’ll be passing this easel down to their son or daughter one day too.
Building Montessori Communities with Little Partners
