The holiday season is just around the corner, and what better way to celebrate than by giving the gift of learning and creativity to the young ones in your life? At Inly, we've curated a selection of Montessori-inspired gift ideas that are not only fun but also educational. 

Whether you're a parent, grandparent, or simply looking for meaningful presents, these Montessori gift ideas for kids will help foster their natural curiosity and support their development in a thoughtful and engaging way.

Toddler House (ages 18m–3)

1. Movement The Mini Montessori Climber supports a toddler’s natural desire to use and strengthen their whole body. This particular item is great for indoor movement in cold winter months that prohibit regular outdoor play.
2. Open-ended play Bristle Builders are the perfect material for your creative and explorative toddler. These blocks are designed to push together and pull apart, not only strengthening those little fingers but providing a unique experience as an alternative to classic wooden blocks.
3. Sensorial Sensory play engages fine motor skills (the smaller muscles of the hands that help with feeding, dressing, handwriting, etc.). It also supports your child’s imagination and emotional resilience. While engaging in sensory play the 5 senses are engaged, which helps to regulate their emotions (of all kinds!). This winter-themed sensory kit has beautiful, natural materials that will last for years to come.
4. Exploration of colors Give your child a dazzling colorful experience with this Natural Historian Camera — each lens provides a unique perspective of the world around them. 
5. Pretend Play Not all dolls are created equal. Let your toddler practice empathy and leadership skills on this lifelike newborn doll that feels and moves like a real baby. You can choose from 4 ethnicities. 
6. Everyday Gear Keep your home and classroom clean by taking off your sneakers or boots and putting these on inside. These comfortable unisex toddler slippers with a rubber sole are also easy for your child to put on themselves. 

Children’s House (ages 3–6)

1. Balance & Coordination These colored River Stones are fun for children to create elaborate pathways with, but they also are working a child’s core strength, balance, and executive functioning (the ability to plan)! For kids who crave a deeper sensory experience, check out this version.
2. STEM Your budding architect must engage their spatial reasoning skills to complete each of the challenging 3D prompts to build a variety of houses in this I Can Build It! Architecture Set.
3. The Iterative Process Lakeshore Learning does it again with this magnetic problem-solving board. Your child will use trial and error to solve each challenge of getting the coaster into the correct box with this Engineer-A-Coaster Activity Kit.
4. Imagination Everyone’s favorite Australian dog has a laugh-out-loud game, Bluey’s Wackadoo Workout Dice, to get everyone in the family moving. Use your imagination to follow 2 prompts given by the dice to act out how an octopus might jump, for example.
5. Science These are not your average backyard bugs. Use the included magnifier in this Real Bugs Discovery Kit to view these unique specimens in an acrylic cube, along with a fact book to boost your budding scientist's curiosity.
6. Fine Motor This Weaving Board made of natural wood strengthens your child’s fine motor skills and exercises their creativity. Use scarves at home or grab some of these hand-dyed play silks to weave through the holes and create patterns and designs.

Lower Elementary (ages 6–9)

1. Movement Did you know that wobble boards (and other toys like this) don’t just build balancing abilities in your child? Recent studies show a correlation between balance skill building and improvement in brain functions like memory, spatial recognition, and concentration. Here is one that is sure to challenge your elementary child.
2. Non-Fiction Discovery When you can’t quite travel to the bottom of the ocean, outer space, or back in time, this Virtual Reality goggle set with 96 pages of interactive content will be sure to bring your child as close to a real-life experience as possible. Make sure to check out all four versions and choose the theme you’d most like to explore.
3. Literature Or is it? This book is indeed a book, but it is also a collection of projects that can be folded, cut, and torn from each page. Click the link to see 2 versions — one for the environmentalist and one for the inventor. 
4. Open-Ended Play Take your child’s engineering skills to the next level with KEVA’s Contraptions Reactions building set. Focus, resilience, patience, and fine motor skills are all put to test in this fun and open-ended material for your elementary child.
5. Cultural A Lower Elementary child is honing their understanding of their community, town, country, and world around them. With this interactive coloring map of the US, coloring map of the world, and coloring map of the world’s flags, they can learn and create simultaneously. 
6. Artistic Does your child love to express themselves through fashion? With My First Fashion Designer your child can plan their outfits ahead of time with endless options of style.

Upper Elementary (ages 9–11)

Whimsy Who doesn’t love rainbows? Especially when they are created by the sun itself and slowly dance around the room. This solar powered Rainbow Maker will bring light and color into any sunny windowed room your child chooses to move it to.

1. Literacy For your non-fiction lover, a book titled “Timelines of Everything” is filled with rich images and facts about topics like dinosaurs and Vikings to the history of robots and espionage. With every book purchased on this website, a book is donated to someone in need. 
2. Artistic Kids Crafts is a women-owned business working to empower girls across the globe. They offer a variety of high-quality craft products around the themes of innovation, creativity, and leadership.
3. LEGO Meets Art Culture This LEGO kit is not for the faint of heart — it’s rated as skill level 18+, but Montessori kids have been strengthening their fingers for a decade already and will be excited to build a replica of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” in this LEGO masterpiece set.
4. Reflective Staying in the moment and being mindful is hard with all of the distractions of life (and screens!) these days. Gift your child a Letters to My Future Self kit so they can stop to think about what they want to recall about their current life and read about someday in the future.

Middle School and older (ages 11+)

1. Experiences Looking for an out-of-the-box experience for you and your Middle Schooler to do together or with friends? Puttshack in Boston offers a tech-infused mini golf experience that is sure to blow everyone’s minds. Need something lower-key? Yoga and fitness studios often offer class packages that are fun and get your teen moving. Gift your pre-teen/teen a 10-pack of yoga classes or workouts at a favorite studio like Studio 143. They offer kids/teens aerial yoga. Grab a gift card as a gift for either one of these places to reduce the clutter in your home and give them a memory they will hang onto.
2. STEM Middle Schoolers are wanting to take a closer and more zoomed-in look at the world around them, both figuratively and literally. This telescope will open their minds (and bodies) up to the great outdoors and outer space to see that there is more to life than what is in front of them.
3. Card Games The game, Ouisi Nature, contains a deck of beautifully designed cards that can be used in more ways than one. One version of the game is similar to a favorite, Apples to Apples, except with intricate designs found outside. With 210 cards included, every time you play, it will look different.
4. Style Cariuma is a brand that has collaborated with Hokusai's iconic prints, “the Great Wave” (Under the Wave off Kanagawa) and "Watanabe" the warrior from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts’ renowned collection of Japanese art to bring these quality, stylish shoes to life. For every pair of Cariuma sneakers purchased, the brand will plant a pair of trees in the Brazilian Rainforest, the lungs of the world, to directly aid reforestation & the preservation of our endangered species’ natural habitat. 
   
   Additionally, the Inly School Store has zip-up hooded sweatshirts, fleece joggers, heathered fleece vests, sherpa pullovers, blankets, drinkware, knit beanies, and more. Most items come in youth XS – adult XXL and make for great family gifts. Orders can be placed online, and items will be shipped directly to your home.
5. Literacy Evoke a peaceful and soulful bedtime routine for your emerging teen with A Poem for Every Day of the Year. Encouraging a calming routine gives your hard-working learner a break, allowing them to escape into poetry every single day (or night).

For more ideas, check out our other Montessori Gift Guides from 2018, 2019 and 2022.