Baby J's Activity Area

 

Things have been absolutely manic here lately with L's birthday, Halloween and Baby J's not sleeping.  I've been collecting pictures and have tons of posts I need do find time to do!

 

Here is Baby J's work area as well as L's work space in our living room.  These pictures are a bit old.  This environment was ideal for when he was 3 to 5 months.  Now he has just turned six months and is sitting up so I'm modifying things a bit. 

 It's a bit hard to see but the first mat is his movement mat.  Above it hangs the dancers mobile.  This is where he lies and watches the mobile, has tummy time and plays with his toys. 

The second mat is used under his tripod.  This holds his hanging ring on an elastic which he used for practising batting and catching as well as hand to hand transfer.  There is also an elastic holding the Takane ball which you can see sitting on top of the tripod.  He uses this for kicking and now he can bat at it while lying on his belly as well.

 As I mentioned L and Baby J share this space so it also includes her easel, table and gnome home as well as the dresser which we use for her craft drawer, games and the top as our nature table.  Obviously once Baby J is totally mobile we will be seriously modifying to suite his needs and safety.

This is the little unit I found to store Baby J's toys for the time being until I find an appropriate shelf.  On the top is his basket of known objects, Art ABC book which he looks at when on his belly.  Starting from the top left are his interlocking discs, Squish and teething beads.  On the bottom row is one of my favourite bits.  A cubicle with a door which we can later use for the idea of object permanence.  Then there is his teether and another Takane ball.  I have placed these toys in the cubicles because they are developmentally appropriate for Baby J right now.   Eventually he will be able to move over to the shelves and pick his own toys.

I love this space because of the order and simplicity.  There are not too many objects to clutter the space and there is a sense of order(usually until L has gotten in there!!).  I also love the natural light.  I as mentioned above Baby J has pretty much outgrown this set up now so I will be posting about our modified activity area in a future post.  If you would like to read more about how to set up a Montessori infant activity area check out this great post over at The Full Montessori.