Our latest Montessori project has been to finally complete Henry's closet. Ever since we completed his Montessori toddler bedroom, the closet has been sitting empty -- except for a few toys that I rotate in and out for his quiet time. During this time, his clothes have still been in the baby dresser in the closet of our tot school classroom.
Since we need the baby dresser for baby things, we finally had to get the motivation to finish up the closet. I'm so happy we did, and so is Henry. For the short time that the closet has been done, he has loved picking out his outfits. Henry always had the choice to pick his outfits before, but it was significantly harder to see all the choices when things are folded in a drawer.
For this renovation, we moved an Ikea Expedit shelving unit into the space. This unit holds everything that can't easily be hung up. Baskets make it easy for Henry to get what he needs and to help put away his own laundry. Everything on the shelf is completely accessible for Henry allowing for total independence.
The other big change we made was moving the hanging bar much lower. Its at the perfect height for Henry to hang/unhang clothes. On one side of the shelf are his pajamas and the other side are his shirts. We're still working on teaching him how to put clothes on the hangers, but he can take the clothes off. He also quickly figured out how to hang clothes up on the bar by himself.
On the walls of the closet, I hung pictures I took of Henry dressing. I looked for a set of other children dressing, but I couldn't find anything I liked. These pictures add a little beauty to the space, and will hopefully give Henry the confidence to try to dress completely on his own -- something he struggles with.
The other parts of the closet -- two built in shelves -- are used for toy storage. These are things that Henry can ask to play with at quiet time or are occasionally rotated to his play shelves. Overall, I'm very happy with how the space turned out, and I'm excited to give Henry a space to practice essential care-of-self skills!
