FOLLOWING THE CHILD’S LEAD: THE MOVEMENT ROOM

“Mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it. It is vital that educational theory and practice should be informed by that idea.” – Maria Montessori.

Our home has three bedrooms; a master, the girls’ room, and a room that was first my husband’s office– then T’s bedrooms which then became my office. As the girls approached their first birthday, and I stated to adjust to working wherever/whenever, it was time to change that room, yet again. We plan on homeschooling therefore a homeschooling/art room seemed like the perfect transformation.

So I spent weeks organizing and purging materials to prepare this environment. The first time we used this art room once it was ready, it became clear that it needed to be changed–yet again.

I set up colours of construction paper for them to choose form and once I turned around to grab crayons, they were both attempting to to climb the table. It was obvious, the girls needed a movement area, not an art room.

We were in the process of creating a movement area downstairs. It was pretty much finished, but the girls cannot be down there without supervision–it’s difficult to get them downstairs and there is very little I need to work on downstairs. Movement is something they need a great amount of, more that just the time the downstairs movement area would provide–so it was time to bring that area upstairs. We needed to swap the homeschooling room and movement room so the girls had a more designated space to climb.

We relocated all book and supplies to the basement and their movement materials upstairs. Thankfully, this swap only took a few days.

The next day we introduced the newly remodeled room to the girls, which they excitedly explored. Their new movement area includes their tunnel, DIY Pikler and ramp, ball ramp, a Tibetan singing bowl, wood balance/ride bike, and their wobble board. This room also has a reclining chair that I use to nurse them and for me to work or observe them from.

When they get up in the morning or from a nap, they often shuffle their way to the movement room allowing me to easily ready them for the day, one at a time. They may spend some time in here alone or together, but they do prefer me to join them. Currently, while they don’t need to be right next to me, they do prefer to be in the same room.

I love having this space available to them for whenever they wish to climb.

Do you have an area set-up for movement?

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