I've been wanting to do this post for awhile, since so many of you ask me about how to organize materials - both behind-the-scenes and in your classrooms. I'm going to share some of my favorite ways of organizing and storing materials, and hopefully you'll come away with some new ideas (and of course, share your own!)
The wide range of glorious Montessori materials is one of the best things about the Montessori method, but putting it all together in a classroom so that everything is neatly arranged (and easy to find) is a challenge. I often get questions from both parents and teachers on how to arrange a classroom, and I've blogged about it quite a bit, but the posts are spread around so I'm going to bring them together in one giant post.
One of my favorite topics related to Montessori is how to go about organizing all the wonderful materials. Being "hands-on" means lots of stuff, and that means finding a place to put all of it. One thing I've used successfully for many years is wheeled carts. These usually have three drawers, and can be found all over (from Target to the Container Store). I currently have three of them, one drawer per curricular area: Art, Science, and Practical Life; History, Geography, and Math/Geometry; and Biology, Language, and Math.
Montessori materials take up a lot of room – that’s a fact. Shelf space always seems to be in short supply, no matter how many shelves you have. One way to fit more materials on a shelf is to use a cabinet (sometimes called a “tower”) with small drawers. Just like a skyscraper, cabinets make use of vertical space rather than horizontal.
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