Early Learning

Sensory play starts long before a baby can sit up: a rattle to hear, a fabric ball to squeeze, a rolling chime to follow with the eyes. This Montessori baby range follows your child from the first weeks to toddler age, in smooth wood and soft fabric.

The first months: one object, one sensation

Montessori educational toys for a newborn stay simple. The fabric clutch ball is easy to grasp, the elephant rattle and the wooden baby maracas answer the smallest movement with a soft sound, and the pastel rolling rattle chimes as it rolls away. Good newborn sensory toys are light, quiet enough not to startle and easy to wipe clean, since everything ends up in the mouth.

From six months: shake, tip and twist

Once your baby sits up, look for things that react to a gesture. Tip the rainbow rainstick and the beads trickle down; turn the teething ring with sensory beads and each bead clicks round under the fingers. Turn the rainstick slowly while your baby watches, then hand it over: they will soon try to make the trickle last as long as yours.

From one year: stacking, pounding and first puzzles

Around the first birthday, sensory toys for kids become far more physical, with something to stack, push or bang in each hand. Rainbow stackers and ring towers teach size and order, the dinosaur and safari bead mazes train the fingers, and from 18 months the pastel pounding bench lets off steam with a mallet. The first wooden animal puzzle, with its big pieces, is a lovely first puzzle for a 1 year old, while push-along walker carts support those wobbly first steps.