Nurture your child’s development with Montessori at home

Your child will flourish in a well-prepared environment.

Learn more Questions? Contact me!

Montessori at Home with The Prepared Nest™

A home environment based on the child’s innate need to learn offers safe hands-on play, exploration and participation in daily family life.  Introducing Montessori principles at home will nurture the child’s learning development — cognitively, physically, and emotionally— and strengthen family relationships.

Julie Mitaro

Founder of the Prepared Nest
As an AMI trained Montessori educator, former Primary Guide for ages 2.5 to 7 years, and parent of three grown children, I now enjoy helping families bring Montessori principles and inspiration into their homes through The Prepared Nest. A home is not a classroom; however, it is the child’s first and most important learning environment. I founded The Prepared Nest to help parents understand how much they can enrich their child’s development by applying these principles at home.
Follow me on Instagram
#thepreparednest

Montessori activities at home:

Create Rich and Lasting Grandchild Relationships With Practical Life Activities

✨Now that we are grandparents, our home is not set up with day-to-day activities for our young grandchildren. However, when our grandchildren visit, we have age-appropriate toys, games, puzzles and books organized for them in a few of our home cabinets. We also have Montessori-at-home practical life materials ready to use as learning tools. These materials

Toddler Art Activities Offer Practical Life and Sensory Learning

Because children are naturally drawn to hands-on exploration, art activities can be especially attractive to the toddler. This attraction encourages the gathering of important information through touch. As Dr. Montessori discovered, “The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.” Toddler Art Benefits The benefits of learning through art are many. To begin with, art

Introducing New Foods to Toddlers as a Sensory Activity

Most often, toddlers are eager to try new activities. Typically, they are “all in” when invited to participate. With boundless enthusiasm for learning, the young child tends to explore with all their developing senses and abilities. Because of this, it’s not uncommon for a toddler to want to explore an activity by tasting and mouthing

Toddler Painting Activities Offer Layers of Valuable Learning

Toddler painting is layered with practical life learning experiences and more! When an invitation to paint is offered to the toddler, it is almost always received with great enthusiasm. And as an activity, it becomes a great opportunity for layers of learning. With a little advance thought, painting as an activity can include practical life, sensorial, language,

Recent blog posts about Montessori at home:

How to Make New Connections With Your Grandkids—Virtually

As grandparents who live away from our two young grandchildren, maintaining a long-distance family connection is very important to us—and it can also be challenging for all. Knowing how busy both their family’s and our schedules are, finding a moment to connect with our grandchildren often falls into a small and spontaneous window of time.

Create Rich and Lasting Grandchild Relationships With Practical Life Activities

✨Now that we are grandparents, our home is not set up with day-to-day activities for our young grandchildren. However, when our grandchildren visit, we have age-appropriate toys, games, puzzles and books organized for them in a few of our home cabinets. We also have Montessori-at-home practical life materials ready to use as learning tools. These materials

Attractive Home Spaces Designed With The Child in Mind

During an interview with American interior designer Thom Filicia, columnist Marni Jameson shared this insightful perspective: “We all stop seeing ourselves and our homes honestly, and can benefit from outside experts who have good taste and a keen eye to help us see what we don’t.” From my experience, this rings true when creating children’s

Preparing for Change? When Less Can Offer More Growth

Preparing for change takes thoughtful intention and planning. In his book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle describes a caterpillar preparing for their significant change ahead: “On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, … and one slice of watermelon.” And, no surprise here, “That night he had