A Montessori style Christmas

Christmas time is fast approaching and more parents are thinking about how to incorporate Montessori principles into the season for their children. Perhaps your focus is on becoming more sustainable, or on reducing the amount of 'stuff' you have, or choosing great children's gifts or helping children be aware of others and those less fortunate. For some of our community, children of three years are just starting to understand the concept of christmas, and it's a great time to establish and introduce your family traditions and ways of celebrating. In the first part of our guide, we will talk about sustainability and gifts taht kids will actually engage with beyond christmas morning.

SUSTAINABILITY

Christmas can quickly turn into an overwhelm of too much stuff, particularly with children. There are ways to be mindful of this and sill keep things fun.

Christmas cards and wrapping

Consider reusing your children’s paintings and drawings as Christmas wrapping. Some added glitter from an environmentally friendly Aussie company such as The Glitter Tribe can be added to make things more sparkly. If your children are a little bit older, and have started sewing activities at Montessori, you can work together to create some reusable fabric gift bags that can be recycled year after year. It can be as simple as two rectangles hand stitched with running stitch on 3 sides, and tied with a ribbon to close the bag. These special packaging options slow down the quick gift unwrapping, and help to instil mindfulness about the importance and care that goes into giving and receiving a gift.

Cards and gift tags can also be made by children. They can use their newly found scissor skills to cut triangles for Christmas tree shapes or circles for bauble decorations that can be made into lovely gift tags. Children’s drawings are always charming and will be keepsakes for many years, particularly for parents and relatives who are the recipients. Drawings can be done directly on cards, or on separate paper and glued on to allow for drafts.

Gifts that children will use beyond Christmas morning

It can often be disappointing when children quickly tear open a gift, toss it aside and move onto the next. This is probably a reasonable reaction to the volume of gifts that children can be overwhelmed with from well meaning family and friends. With children, quality over quantity is often the best idea. Gifts that can be used beyond Christmas day are ideal and they often help to prevent the sudden drop in fun once the big day is over. Here are some gender neutral ideas for great gifts for 3-6 year old children. There are some stores and brands that are listed amongst these. We are not affiliated with these brands or vendors. They are meant to serve as a guide to finding the suggested gifts.

Baking set - all ages

A set of cookie cutters, rolling pin, apron and a simple recipe book makes a great gift. The illustrated recipe card comes from Littlewhitebear co on Etsy.com and is an excellent example of 3-6 year old friendly recipe format.

Budding Entomologist kit (5-6 years)

Kids of 3-6 years are fascinated by insects. Encourage their interest by giving a simple reference book about insects, a bug hotel, magnifying glass and sketch book to draw and colour what they observe.

Sewing kit (4-6 years)

Many children love to sew. You can purchase a simple, empty sewing box and add items to suit the age and skill of the child. Start with embroidery floss, darning needle, blunt nosed safety scissors, cork to hold sewing needle, needle threader, hessian cut into squares for the less experienced child, and add more as skills develop.

Gardening kit (3-6 years)

The options are many and varied for this gift. To begin, you can add a small hand tool set for gardening, a watering can, small terracotta pots, a bag of soil, seed packets for quick growing summer plants and child sized gardening gloves. You could even add a gardening hat, sunglasses and sunscreen!

French knitting (5-6 years)

This is best suited to children 5-6 years old and older who have mastered many fine motor activities, and are ready for a new challenge. French knitting is quite simple once the initial set up is established and children can enjoy making long ‘snake’ like creations that can be crafted into other items. This suggested set includes balls of yarn, blunt nosed scissors and a french knitting tool.

Woodworking tool set (4-6 years)

This particular set is sold at Oscar’s Wooden Ark online, and features working tools that children can use to hammer together soft wood varieties such as balsa wood to begin with, and then progress to harder varieties. Don’t be afraid to take out items prior to gifting that the child may not be ready to use yet, such as the pliers, and give those at a later date when they are ready. Another fun item that children enjoy using is a manual drill (not in this kit) that can drill through many materials and requires turning the wheel to operate.

Art and craft set (all ages)

Craft kits are always a hit with kids who like to draw and create. This kit includes feathers, coloured wooden craft sticks, chenille sticks, pompoms, coloured pencils, scissors and glue. You could add construction paper and a special box to keep the supplies in. Open ended uses where the item could be turned into lots of things are best to spark creativity and imagination. Ready made kits often have a lot of non useful items. It is best to create the kit yourself.