Toddler Tuesdays – Treasure Basket

One of my favorite Montessori baby activities is the treasure basket. Its was cheap and easy to put together and best of all, has been loved for quite a while. Although its been tweaked a few times since then, I originally put it together back when Lucy was probably only 8-9 months old. She loved it then and she loves it now.
The concept of a treasure basket is simple. Its a basket filled with treasures for a baby or young toddler to explore. Babies naturally explore the world with all their senses and Montessori believed it was important to build on this by giving babies and young children a variety of sensorial experiences to stimulate those senses and help develop the ability to focus their attention and discriminate between items. You want to help them learn how to learn. Keeping this in mind, you will want to select a wide variety of textures, scents, colors and sounds when picking items for your basket.

When I first put it together, I only had 5-10 items in mine but How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way recommends between 50-100. I still don’t think I have 50 (just counted, hers has 30) but I did notice that Lucy took a greater interest in it after I added more items.
And think outside of the box basket. They don’t need to be baby items. Here are a few of the things I put in Lucy’s:
avocado pit
pompoms
boning tool (for basket making, very smooth texture)
little canvas bag
seashell
rock
ribbons of different colors and textures
glass jar
pine cone
velcro (she just figured out last night how to pull the pieces apart and she loves the sound that makes)
wood sample (from picking out our kitchen flooring, haha!)

You’ll see that many of my items would not make it on a list of baby proof items. I’m okay with that. I’m not advocating giving your baby a basket full of knives, use your own judgment and common sense, but try to keep an open mind. The best way to fill a basket is to just start looking for fun items through the day.
Another Montessori concept is freedom and in many cases this is seen by leaving items out for a child to select what and when he wants to work on an activity. But since, as I said before, I want to be present if she is playing with it, I only take it down at select times when I know I can keep an eye on her. She doesn’t have to play with it when I take it down, but she normally does.
The first few times I would pick out items on my own and look and explore them myself, and that was enough to get her interested but now she knows it is fun and I can just take it down. She wants me nearby but doesn’t want, or need, my interaction so I use that time every afternoon to sit next to her, relax and listen to my German lessons (but I kept forgetting to take pictures so these are from last night, I let her play after bathtime, hence the wet hair and pajamas :-)
She normally plays with it for 20-30 minutes. Now that she is getting older, I can tell I need to add or switch items more so recently, I’ve been on the lookout for new things to throw in there. Let me know if you make a basket and stumble upon something really toddlerific!