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.

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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

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

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.

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).

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Happy Holidays! 🙂

 

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