Our reading corners have evolved a lot since we moved in this house one year ago. In the beginning we had a few books in our family bedroom for the bedtime stories. And we had a reading corner in our office. The books were displayed on the lowest shelves of our bookcases.
Between 18 and 24 months old, my little one was a true bookworm. We read 5 to 15 books a day, everyday. To follow her passion for reading, we bought many books since we moved to Germany. I would have preferred to buy less books and borrow more at a local library but we live abroad and we find few books in French or Romanian here. Moreover, I’m not always aligned with the content of the books I find at the local French Cultural Institute. So we end up buying many books and the bookshelves were too full. It became difficult for a two years old to figure out which books she wanted as we couldn’t display them anymore.
Also, when my daughter turned two, she started asking for fewer books to be read and preferred to read the same books over and over again.
I always try to follow her lead and her interests, so I reorganized a bit our reading corners. The main one is in the living room. Here we have this lovely reading bench from Woomo, a book display from Ikea and a little cushion on the floor.
The furniture is child-size so she can access her books by herself. Six to seven books are displayed at the same time and I rotate books every week.
For example, two weeks ago we read about animals and birds:
This weeks we are reading about insects:
The choice of books follows her interests of the moment. There are always some favorite ones that stay longer on the book display: « Actual size » by Steve Jenkins, for example:
All the other books are still available and still stored on the bottom shelf of our bookcase. I can’t always guess what she wants and I think it’s important for her to be free to choose the books she needs at a given moment. Whenever she reminds herself of a book that she wants to read and can’t find on the book display, she goes in our home library and brings it to the reading corner.
We also have a few books in the bedroom.
Since I took this picture I have actually reduced the number of books in this area. Now we only have a maximum of 6 book here.
We also have some art books and exhibitions catalogues in our art space.
And finally, a couple of books on our Nature Table
I hope you enjoyed this guided tour into our Montessori-inspired home!