I don’t know how it’s at your end but my little human is the most energetic little being I have ever seen. The amount of energy he has from waking up until going to bed is simply unbelievable. He has to burn off that extra energy somehow. Otherwise, we have a problem.
We do our best to spend a lot of time outside. We walk a lot, we chase soap bubbles, and we play soccer. Also, we play catch-me-if-you-can almost every day. He really likes that. But all that is often not enough. That’s why we always try to include at least one activity that provides some kind of movement on our Montessori shelf. Here are three simple movement trays that we rotate on our shelves:
Ball basket
This is basically the basket filled with balls of different sizes, textures, and weights. Whenever L passes next to his shelf and ball basket is there, he can’t resist the urge to grab a ball. Sometimes he is throwing the ball in the air. Sometimes he is kicking it with his feet. And sometimes he brings his ball to me and wants to play pass-the-ball. We learned that our hallway is a safe place to play with the ball. And surprisingly, L always brings his ball there before he starts to play. Well, most of the time at least. Also, I always choose light and soft balls so all the windows in our house are safe.
Ball swatter
This is one simple movement activity we recently discovered by accident. We were at grandma’s and there was a fly swatter on the coffee table. So L took it and started to push it in front of him. He likes to push all kinds of sticks, branches, and push toys in front of him while he walks. Then he saw a ball lying in the corner so he took a swing to hit a ball. I can tell he really liked the effect he made because he couldn’t stop laughing. He was running through the house for half an hour chasing the ball with the fly swatter. Since then, this activity is part of our shelfie rotations. I can’t remember when was the last time that something kept his attention for so long 🤗
Vehicles basket
Another way to provide some movement is to fill a basket with some cars, trucks, or other little vehicles. L really loves to crawl around on his knees while driving his cars through our living room. He also makes funny car sounds while doing so. After half an hour of this, he usually comes and sits next to me. Tired and happy. Sometimes just tired 🙂 but I don’t need to mention how much energy this activity burns.
To make things more interesting we made a road on our living room floor out of electrical tape. This turned out to be a great idea because now he is engaged in his play much longer. He can literally push his little trucks up and down this road for an hour. I saw that most people use painters tape to “build” a floor road, but for us, electrical tape was equally good.
If you don’t want to “decorate” your floors this way, you can also use a children’s play rug with roads. We also use this rug to switch things up a little bit.
Push / pull toys
Something that never gets bored to L is his push toys. I don’t know where does this need to push things comes from, but he likes to push all kinds of sticks, branches, chairs, or push toys while he walks. For now, we have just one wooden birdie push toy that he uses almost every day. I plan to buy him a small pushchair with a baby doll inside. His little friend has this pushchair and whenever we are visiting they are fighting who will push the baby around. He also has a bunch of pull toys that he really loved until recently. Suddenly, he just switched to push toys.
Cleaning
This is something that theoretically goes into practical life category, but it works like a charm to calm a spirited toddler so I need to mention it here.
Cleaning is something I never asked my little human to do. Actually, he asked me (in his wordless way) to hand him the cleaning cloth. He wanted to clean his high chair after breakfast. And he was 16 months old. I was shocked! Of course, he saw me countless times doing this same activity but his act was wonderful. It shows me how willing they are to learn practical life skills while they are so young. I remember him being so proud and happy after he finished the cleaning. And that same morning, after waking up, he was an overactive little monster.
Since then we try to have some kind of cleaning tray on our shelf at least every other rotation. Sometimes we put a tray with a cleaning cloth and spray bottle on our Montessori shelf. And sometimes we put a tray with a little broom and some pom poms so he can sweep them up. Also, when he is a little bit restless and nothing else helps, we will try to wash some dishes. Or clean windows. I noticed that, while doing this kind of activity, he is always focused, calm, and really enjoys what he is doing.
