Washing Stands for Your
0-3 Classroom or
Home Environments
Developed by Mimimo in collaboration with Montessori Institute Prague and our AMI 0-3 Trainer, Heidi Philippart.
What is the story behind this furniture?
There is a saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Having built 3 environments in our training center, we can honestly say that “it also takes a village to build a Montessori environment.”
Many Montessori materials are factory made and they are easy to order. But that is only half the work. Finding the culturally relevant right items, the right size, the right color, the right use is the second half. The other day we were looking for a twine (a string) for an art presentation for the 6-12 DC. It took 4 tries before we found the right one and here you can see how happy our dear Carla Foster, our 6-12 AMI trainer, was when we finally found the right one :).
However, it is not always possible to find just the right materials. We encountered this very problem once we started discussing three really important pieces of furniture: the handwashing, the cloth washing and the dishwashing stands, we realized we are facing a beautiful challenge.
These three stands are part of practical life activities and are very important in the toddler environment. We knew exactly what we wanted: wooden stands, beautiful and appealing, the right size, the right space for soap, dishwashing liquid, the right hooks for mittens and towels, the right apron, the right space for a bucket and everything else. Those of you who have done this, who have looked for these stands for your toddler environments, know that there is not much that fits this description and items that do fit are often far from ideal.
We needed ideal, though! After all, we are a training center and this material has to fit the developmental needs of the child, it has to be of high standard; our diploma course students will want the same standard in their classrooms.
We spent endless hours looking for these stands online only to find.. nothing. One fine day, however, we literally looked out of our window in the training center and found the solution!
This is a photo taken from the windows of our 0-3 environment. A friend of the MIP team lives there, her name is Alice. She happens to love working with wood, designing children's furniture.
When I called her and said that we cannot find the right stands for our environment and whether she would be interested to help us and design it, together with our 0-3 trainer Heidi Philippart, she said “yes”! And it was a very happy yes.
It took several months of collaboration and discussions, calls and testing between Alice and Heidi and MIP, and three new Montessori stands saw the light of the world. Check out these photos:
We are now in the process of working with the prototypes, fine tuning features. Stands are now being tested by our students.
It is such a joy to create something so meaningful. It took a village, an AMI trainer, a Trainer in Training, a furniture manufacturer, students who are working with the stands, me, my colleague at work who spent days looking for the right bowls, my mom who spent hours sowing, and now we can proudly present to you that to which we gave birth together.
If you want to support us by buying one of our first stands and testing it with your children, you are welcome to do so here.
Detailed products
Our stands are a unique piece of growing furniture developed for children from 10 months to 3 years. The adjustable leg system allows positioning according to the age and needs of the child to two different heights. The stands are made of birch plywood, they have rounded edges for increased safety and reflect the design trends of modern children's furniture. They are developed based on Montessori principles.
Dish Washing Stand
Designed by Mimimo under supervision of Heidi Philippart, an AMI 0-3 Trainer.
Dish washing is a practical life exercise. A child washes dishes which are dirtied during daily classroom or home activities, such as plates, cups or flatware. The dirty dishes are placed on the tray on the left side of the stand. A child puts an apron on, fetches a jug of warm water for scrubbing and a jug of cold water for rinsing and puts a little bit of soap in the warm water. Once all dishes are washed, they are rinsed and placed on the tray on the right side of the stand. A child fetches a drying cloth, dries the dishes and puts them away.
(This text is not a description of a Montessori presentation, it is to simply describe the use of the stand.)
PRICE: 584€ / 14 600 Kč
DELIVERY TIME: 4 weeks
Cloth washing stand
Designed by Mimimo under supervision of Heidi Philippart, an AMI 0-3 Trainer.
Cloth washing is another practical life activity. A child will wash, for example, clothes used for dusting or for cleaning up spills. Dirty cloths are placed into a dirty cloths basket during the day and when the child wants to wash them, they will go and get them from this basket.
(This text is not a description of a Montessori presentation, it is to simply describe the use of the stand.)
PRICE: 584€ / 14 600 Kč
DELIVERY TIME: 4 weeks
Hand Washing Stand
Designed by Mimimo under supervision of Heidi Philippart, an AMI 0-3 Trainer.
The ability to wash our hands is very important. Handwashing is a practical life, care of the self, exercise. The child pours warm water in the bowl, wets their hands, soaps their hands with a soap, rinses their hands, dries their hands with a towel and after drying the surface of the stand pours dirty water into a bucket. There are two hooks on the stand, on the left side for a hand mitt, and on the right side for a hand towel.
(This text is not a description of a Montessori presentation, it is to simply describe the use of the stand.)
PRICE: 425€ / 10 600 Kč
DELIVERY TIME: 4 weeks
Set of 4 aprons, 10 hand mitts
and 10 hand towels
All items are handmade and colourmatch the stands.
Aprons, hand mitts and hand towels are made from a thick but very soft terry cloth to soak wetness well and protect the child's clothing from getting wet. The openings for the head and for the hands of the child are large so that the child can easily slide hands in and put the apron separately.
They are all handmade and colorcoded to match the bowls, jug and bucket (in the stands above).
PRICE: 190€ / 4 750 Kč
DELIVERY TIME: 5 weeks
Set of 3 Dish Drying Towels
All items are handmade and colourmatch the stands.
Dish Drying Towels are made from a thick but very soft terry cloth to soak wetness well. They are child sized and there is a circle embroidered in the center of the towel, on which the child places a plater or a glass, wraps the towel around and dries it.
They are all handmade and colorcoded to match the bowls, jug and bucket (in th stands above).
PRICE: 64 € / 1 600 Kč
DELIVERY TIME: 5 weeks