How to give your child the best start in life? Bring the Montessori philosophy and Montessori toys into your home, and you'll never regret this decision. Montessori toys for 1-year-olds are designed to help your child master skills and develop new abilities during a particular "sensitive period" – when they are most receptive to learning. With well-suited Montessori toys, your 1-year-old will not miss this limited opportunity to develop his brain skills almost effortlessly.
This blog post will discuss the best Montessori toys for 1-year-olds we handpicked, have personally tested on our kids, and have observed many other children play with in Montessori classrooms. So, without further ado, let's get started!
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The Best Overall Montessori Toys For 1-Year-Olds
We consider the Pikler triangle the best toy for 1-year-old babies due to its enormous benefits to little kids' physical and cognitive development. Not to mention, you'll get years of use out of this toy as even 5-year-olds will adore climbing on it and incorporate it into their pretend play.
Even though the Pikler triangle is not officially a Montessori toy, it is used frequently in Montessori settings and homes. The popularity of the Pikler triangle with those who follow the Montessori method comes from one of the foundations of Montessori teachings. The teaching says that children lead their physical development, so adults should provide kids with opportunities to practice their skills and independence in the outer world.
What is the Pikler triangle good for?
The Pikler triangle encourages children to move and explore their bodies' abilities in space. Playing with the Pikler triangle, children hone their gross motor skills and build strength and balance. Also, toddlers build body, sensory and spatial awareness, and interhemispheric connections by climbing the Pikler triangle.
To align this climbing triangle with the Montessori philosophy, adults should invite children to touch and explore this equipment but not force them to climb on it. Inborn caution and an understanding of balance help prevent toddlers from climbing before they're ready. They'll start putting their feet on the rings when they are ready. Over time, they'll gradually climb higher and higher until they reach the top. You'll be able to see their progress as they keep climbing and applying what they learn to their everyday activities.
Montessori Puzzle for a 1-Year-Old
Shape puzzles are ideal for 1-year-olds as they improve visual discrimination and hand-eye coordination. Although most Montessori puzzles have a knob on top to help babies hold them, this design feature limits the child's hand to one position and does not fully allow them to reap the puzzle benefits. We think the Melissa & Doug puzzle is the most beneficial for 1-year-olds. This puzzle requires children to insert geometric shapes into a board, forming pictures.
Gripping various shapes, 1-year-olds learn to adjust their hand and turn shapes to fit them in the socket. The most challenging shape for little kids is the triangle, but this puzzle contains several other shapes, like circles and ovals, that are easier. This way, the puzzle has multiple difficulty levels, so it gradually promotes skills in 1-year-olds. Children can develop their visual discrimination, spatial awareness, and hand-eye coordination skills by doing this puzzle. Compared to other types of puzzles, it is a more cost-efficient purchase.
Montessori First Birthday Gifts
The Best Montessori Gifts Under 25$
What we love about this toy punching toy is its versatility. A child can practice several skills as they grow, including hand-eye coordination, motor skills, muscle strength, visual attention, and understanding of cause and effect. This hammering toy by Melissa & Doug is sturdy and made of quality materials; parents and children love it!
The Best Montessori Gifts Under 50$
Sensory materials are the foundation of the Montessori curriculum. A 1-year-old child is in a sensitive period during which they seek and build various sensory experiences. Therefore, a sensory bin filled with grains, lentils, or sand is a fantastic tool to encourage a young child's sensory development. The tools we recommend help your baby improve their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and concentration while also building sensory awareness. Children love exploring sensory baskets, and some can focus on this activity for up to half an hour!
The Best Montessori Gifts Under 100$
Maria Montessori set a high emphasis on building life skills in children. By including little kids in our everyday tasks, we help them build a sense of competency and self-respect. Surprisingly, even the youngest kids can be helpful around the house. You can teach them to chop vegetables, knead the dough, and pour liquids from a jar while cooking. Even 1-year-olds can do these tasks but must safely and comfortably position themselves to perform them. Therefore, we highly recommend buying your little toddler a kitchen helper stool that will open up a new world to explore. They will not distract you from cooking anymore; they will actively participate and feel respected, building an essential sense of emotional well-being.
The Best Montessori Gifts Under 200$
Encouraging your children to move at a young age is the best way to boost their cognitive development. Maria Montessori believed that a child's brain was "hand-made" by exploring the surroundings and manipulating the environment. Nowadays, It is common knowledge that a child's brain develops best through movement, which helps solidify the neural connections between its various parts. We have a fantastic blog post on how to boost motor skills in toddlers, which we highly recommend to check out!
"Gross Motor Skills: How to Teach Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers"
The Best Montessori Gifts Under 300$
As we've discussed previously, even the littlest kids must practice self-care skills to become independent and build a respectful sense of self. Independent children are more inclined to cooperate and have positive attitudes. The dressing is the number 1 skill that little kids should master on their path to independence.
To encourage your 1-year-old ability to dress, hooks and hangers must be within children's reach. Therefore, it is crucial to provide hangers, hooks, shelves, and baskets low enough for your little one to reach on their own. Here we recommend a small dress-up island that you can put in your coat room or your child's bedroom to help them feel responsible and self-reliant in their dressing routine.
The Best Affordable Montessori Toys For 1 Year Olds
We think of affordable toys as those which bring the most benefits to a child compared to their price. After a detailed study of Montessori toys available on the market, we believe that a sorting stacker is the best affordable Montessori toy for 1-year-olds. This stacker teaches children visual discrimination, color and shape recognition, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills.
There are several of these stackers available, and most of them are highly rated. However, the stacker we suggest here is better than many others because every piece of the same shape is colored differently. Many stackers we've seen have pieces of each shape painted in the same color, which makes it easier for a child to do the sorting. For example, when all of the circles are red, and the squares are blue, a 1-year-old will quickly learn that. They will do the sorting not by shape but instead by color, which is an easier task. If you want your stacker to last longer, we recommend choosing one with mixed-colored shapes.
The Best Montessori Toys From IKEA
Ikea has many great toys that can fit into a Montessori home. One of the best toys for 1-year-olds is a hammering toy, which promotes hand-eye coordination and motor skills in toddlers.
In our opinion, however, the wisest and the most cost-efficient item to buy at IKEA for a 1-year-old baby would be a Flisat table. This table is multifunctional; you can use it in many different ways when your child gets older.
For 1-year-olds, the table will be an excellent opportunity to train their leg muscles and stimulate their sensory systems if you put some water, kinetic sand, or grains in there for a baby to play with. The Flisat sensory table construction is designed to contain messy materials, which comes in handy when you have young kids at home.
Budget Montessori Toys For 1 Year Olds
Lacing beads is a budget activity bearing many benefits for 1-year-olds development, such as fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, visual perception, spatial recognition, improved interhemispheric connections, etc. We recommend top-rated Melissa & Doug lacing beads that are big enough for your 1-year-old to grip conveniently and practice these essential cognitive skills.
Montessori Toys For 1-Year-Old Boy
Ball run is a traditional Montessori toy that you can find in any classroom. Both boys and girls play with the such ball runs every day. We were excited to find a Montessori ball run with small wooden cars that every boy (and girl, to be honest) would love at first sight.
The Best Educational Toys For 1-Year-Old: Non-Montessori Must-Haves
STEM Toys For 1-Year-Old
Finding a safe STEM toy for little ones is not easy because many such toys include several small pieces or magnets that are a severe choking hazard. Luckily, we found a fantastic toy designed specifically for little kids so that they can develop their STEM skills safely.
SmartMax toys are generally well-made, and this SmartMax Start XL set is no exception. This product is fantastic, and we highly recommend it to everyone!
Board Games For 1-Year-Olds
"Here, Fishy, Fishy" by Haba is a fantastic board game that even 1 year olds can play. This board game is stunning and flawlessly designed. Through this game, toddlers improve their hand-eye coordination, color recognition, and concentration skills and learn to follow the simplest rules.
Puzzles for 1-Year-Olds
Melissa and Dough's "Bear Family" helps 1-year-olds hone their fine motor, hand-eye coordination, and spatial awareness skills. This game is a good buy because of the various challenges you can apply to it. A 1-year-old will try first to fit bear heads on the board. Closer to 2 years, kids can dress up all the bears. When older, they can pretend play, guess facial expressions and learn emotions with this toy.
Active Games For 1-Year-Olds
Well-developed gross motor skills are the prerequisite for successful cognitive development and lie at the bottom of the learning pyramid. As we mentioned earlier, toddlers must be able to move and practice different gross motor skills daily. Therefore, playing active games with your little ones is necessary to hone their motor skills and boost their cognitive development. Many fun, active games you can play outside during warmer months.
But what to do when it is chilly or pouring? We have several tips for playing with your one-year-old indoors: minigolf, ring toss, velcro darts, or even a small adjustable basketball stand. However, in our opinion, bowling is the best game to play with a 1-year-old baby. Your little one will love this active game and improve their motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and spatial awareness in no time.
We have a comprehensive gift guide to toys for babies, where you can find many more ideas on toys for 1-year-olds. We could not recommend this blog post highly enough and strongly encourage you to check it out!
"50+ Baby Toys That Your Newborn Will Ever Need: The Ultimate Gift Guide"
DIY Montessori Toys For 1-Year-Old
An excellent Montessori toy to make at home is a box with a hole on top for your child to post buttons or coins through. This activity fascinates kids and can help them focus and concentrate for long periods.
1. Find a small box, and cut a hole in the top that's large enough for the objects your baby will post through. The box can be anything from a small gift box with a lid to any food packaging, cardboard, or metal.
2. To keep your child's fingers safe from cuts, go over the edges of the hole with hot glue. Make sure that objects can still pass through the hole, though. The glue will make the hole slightly tighter and more challenging to push through when it dries, forcing your baby's finger muscles to work more.
Posting is a fantastic activity that improves 1-year-olds fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. If you do not feel like crafting but still want your baby to enjoy this activity, you could use a 4-in-a-row game, which does the same function. However, different 4-in-a-row games have various sizes of coins, so keep an eye on your little one to prevent swallowing small coins.
One more tip to make the most out of this activity. You can put a posting box in different directions when giving it to your baby, thus stimulating your little one to post objects in different hand positions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Montessori good for a 1-year-old?
Absolutely! The Montessori approach honors the developmental stages of kids of every age and helps them develop their talents and skills in the most effortless way possible during the limited sensitive periods without years of hard work. Moreover, many aspects of the Montessori method nowadays are backed by neuroscience. For example, it is common knowledge now that children undergo the highest number of developmental milestones under the age of three when they can learn things almost unconsciously. Therefore, the earlier you start your Montessori lifestyle, the better your baby's development will be.
However, Montessori is not about the correct setting of toys and activities. First, this is a philosophy and a particular approach to child-rearing. Therefore, you do not need to start buying loads of fancy Montessori toys to practice this approach. What you need the most is a mindset, readiness to respect your child's individuality, and practical experience applying the Montessori approach to your child. How to get this experience? Start practicing the Montessori method today and gradually build your skills while your baby grows.
How do I start a 1-year-old Montessori school?
Montessori At Home
If you are considering starting homeschooling your own 1-year-old, you might need to learn Montessori basics first. We recommend reading several books by Dr. Montessori, for ex., "The Absorbent Mind: A Classic in Education and Child Development for Educators and Parents." Also, we highly advise you to read the book by Tim Seldin, "How To Raise An Amazing Child The Montessori Way." and "The Montessori Toddler: A Parent's Guide to Raising a Curious and Responsible Human Being" by Simone Davies. These books contain all the basics and practical recommendations about applying the Montessori approach at home. There are also online Montessori teacher assistant trainings that are suitable for parents as well. After such training, you will understand all the necessary details of the Montessori approach to start practicing at your home.
Montessori Daycare
If you would like to start a for-profit Montessori school or childcare for toddlers, the first thing we highly advise you to do is to complete the Montessori training in one of the Montessori associations like AMS or AMI. You can start with a Montessori teacher assistant course first, which is shorter and much less expensive than an entire teacher training course. Another opportunity to get a Montessori experience is to volunteer in your local Montessori school for some time, either for free or as teacher support, to get a firsthand experience of the Montessori approach.
How do I discipline my 1-year-old Montessori?
There is no disciplining in the Montessori philosophy. Some may ask how you can even discipline a 1-year-old baby that does not have any self-control yet. Babies and toddlers do not respond to discipline. The answer lies in understanding that the first frontal cortex maturation - responsible for self-control - occurs around age three. Before that, little kids are governed by emotions and instincts.
Under the Montessori approach, adults must do their best to understand the current needs of their little ones and make the necessary adjustments, like feeding their 1-year-old when they are hungry or comforting them when they are sleepy or scared. Montessori parents observe their baby or toddler and try to understand their needs. Also, parents model good behavior for their children and explain what behavior is acceptable and what is not. Most importantly, Montessori parents create a loving and respectful environment; surprisingly, most toddlers will eventually cooperate with such an approach.
The Montessori approach to dealing with tantrums
Your toddler may throw a temper tantrum for many physical reasons, like hunger, illness, or tiredness. In this type of tantrum, you want to eliminate the cause or comfort your little one.
Another type of tantrum is a power struggle. In this case, you do not get into an argument with your child, and you gently but firmly explain to them what you will do and proceed with the action. For example, tell them they can take the last slide and go home from the playground. Even if your toddler does not agree and beings to throw a temper tantrum, you gently pick them up from the floor and go home, as you said. No yelling and violence, no unnecessary talking or explanations. You can discuss their behavior after they calm down.
In conclusion, Montessori parents do not discipline their children; they try to understand them, treat them with respect, set house rules, limit the "No" word, and give choices. More on that, you can read in the book "How To Raise An Amazing Child The Montessori Way."
What is the best age to start Montessori?
The answer is: from birth. Raising your child the Montessori way means understanding the milestones and needs of every age. Newborns have their own needs: care and connection with their caregiver. Talking and singing, rocking and soothing your crying newborn means meeting their developmental needs. But also, when a baby is a little bit older, parents can start practicing a general Montessori approach:
-respecting their baby's individuality,
- allowing the freedom of movement and exploration
- helping babies to become independent by creating a child-friendly environment