Montessori Monday – Christmas Bell Basket for Babies and Toddlers

My 13-month-old granddaughter, Zoey, has always loved her treasure baskets. She enjoyed her kitchen treasure basket and ball treasure basket for months. For the Christmas season, I put together a Christmas bell treasure basket that took about 5 minutes to prepare.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.

Preparing a Montessori-Inspired Christmas Bell Basket

I did have the jingle bells and Christmas basket from last Christmas season. They were 55mm jingle bells and a Christmas bell basket from Michaels craft store. I didn’t use the textured bells until this Christmas when Zoey was less likely to put them in her mouth.

I had previously used a 2″ binder ring to make one of Zoey’s first baby toys … a jingle bell she could hold when her hand wasn’t big enough and strong enough to hold a large bell. You just have to be sure to securely close the binder ring so that your baby’s fingers won’t get pinched.

My Granddaughter’s Experience with her Christmas Bell Basket

Discovering the Bell Basket

Zoey loved when she discovered the bell basket on her shelf.

Exploring the Bell Basket

She spent a good length of time exploring the bell basket. She did a lot of shaking and listening to the bells and took them out of the basket and put them back in over and over.

Walking around Grandpa with the Bell Basket

Then Zoey did one of her favorite activities … walking around her grandpa … this time carrying her bell basket.

Since the first introduction, Zoey goes to her bell basket right away when she arrives at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Lots of fun, sensory exploration and large- and small-motor activity from such a simple idea!

Montessori Monday Link-Up

If you have some Montessori activity trays/lessons to share, please link up below. It’s fine to link up a post from your archives – and you may link up anytime during the week! Your post may be any Montessori-inspired activity or idea. It doesn’t need to be related to my Montessori Monday post. If you’re wondering what’s considered “Montessori inspired” and what to link up (or not link up), check out my “What Is Montessori Inspired?” post. Link up your exact post URL so that we can find your activity if we return to the linky at a later date (which I often do when I’m looking for activities for a roundup post).

I publish the Montessori Monday post and linky each Monday morning and keep the linky open throughout the week. Please place the Montessori Monday button (using the code from the right sidebar) in your post or put a link back to this post.

I’m not able to comment on every post, but I do a lot of pinning on Pinterest and sharing on the Living Montessori Now Facebook page from the Montessori Monday link-up. Thanks for participating!

Notes For community discussions, please join us at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page and/or Google+ Montessori Community.

And don’t forget the Saturday/Sunday weekend sharing days where you may share a kid-related activity of any kind at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page! It’s also Motivational Monday on Mondays now! I invite you to share something positive on the Bits of Positivity Facebook page (Bits of Positivity is my other blog) to help us all get a good start on the work/school week. You might share an inspirational or motivational quote, positive graphic, or post about finding balance or simplifying your life. Or you might share a post on organizing, an encouraging post, a post about making a difference in the world, or a positive parenting post. Just go ahead and share on the Bits of Positivity wall any time today! (Please “like” the Bits of Positivity Facebook page if you haven’t already.) I’ll be pinning a number of ideas to my regular Pinterest boards.

If you have a giveaway on your blog, please add it to my Family-Friendly Giveaway Linky Page! If you enjoy entering giveaways, you’ll always find some great giveaways there.

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy!

Also, if you’ve ever been linked to in one of my roundup posts, please feel free to grab the “Featured on” badge.

Happy Holidays! 🙂

Have you added the Montessori Monday button or a text link? Please be sure you’ve done one or the other so that others can find the link-up, too! If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), Twitter (blog posts by me and others along with the Parent/Teacher Daily and other interesting information), and Google+ (post updates and Montessori Community). You can find me on bloglovin’ now, too. Thank you for following me there. And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter in the right sidebar. You’ll get two awesome freebies in the process!

May be linked to Afterschool Express, Thoughtful Spot, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions, Mom’s Library, A Little Bird Told Me Linky Party, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Homeschool Link-up, TGIF Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Ultimate Homeschool Pinterest Party, Sharing Saturday, Share It Saturday, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, KLP Linky Party.