Shopping for Montessori equipment

Go for quality over quantity

After glimpsing the small leaf mat below selling for $100 online, I prowled Alibaba to see what the reseller had paid: $10 plus shipping!

Initially Alibaba was populated by big Asian manufacturers, but now even our little neighborhood lumber yard sells on it.

This is pretty typical. The markup seems excessive. Here is the link to the Indian manufacturer — I feel badly for them, competing with Chinese manufacturers and then having US resellers claim manufacturing credit.

Montessori equipment has never been produced in the US, by the way.

The Europeans produced the early material, then the Europeans outsourced to Asia, and now the Asian manufacturers make almost all the equipment. Sri Lanka makes some high-grade wood products, but China has the bulk of the manufacturing. If you are shopping directly, look for EU safety certifications as their standards are higher than those of the US.

A problem with buying from resellers is that they buy the cheapest equipment, which is usually from a source without an EU safety certification. Key concerns for safety are 1) type of glue (some are toxic), 2) paint (heavy metal issues), and 3) metals.

Try to avoid excess color. Buy the plain solid wood material when possible. It does not look as nice in photographs as painted material, but it is truly nicer and less likely to contain toxins because the toxins are in the plywood, paint, or finish.

A side note: Haha, this mat shop carries rings (India is a traditional gem cutting and setting location). I found this mix of inventory to be quite entertaining. The ring below is a few hundred USD.

Back to Montessori.

When you stock your Montessori shelves, remember to stick to the authentic and classic list of materials in our albums. If you search “Montessori” online, almost none of the material will fit the authentic description. Most of the so-called Montessori material online has been created by retailers and manufacturers!

Beware of miniaturized equipment. It is not correct. Montessori equipment is meant to be the original size. For example, most of the math equipment such as the rods and towers are later used to transition to more advanced math.

Using the table of contents in our albums as a guide, check Aliexpress or Alibaba for established manufacturers of the equipment you need. I am in the middle of testing a few shops now because I grew tired of dealing with resellers who leave material in grubby warehouses after importing it. Sadly, the several Nienhuis pieces I got smelled like a moldy warehouse — plus, the grammar cards that looked nice online were made from plastic, I hadn’t expected it as they were originally made from a thick cardstock.

For all of you AMI teachers out there, remember that our beloved Nienhuis of old has long been sold to a big conglomerate. It happened before Bert Nienhuis’ passing, so he partnered with one of the Chinese manufacturers at that point.

I received a lovely binomial cube the other day from an Aliexpress order. And I am planning to see if this shop can gift me some material for my photo shoot. The binomial cube is for our new photo and video shoots.

Speaking of authenticity, please do beware of Montessori videos online. Many are incorrect. Alas. I have spoken to a few parents who got certifications from random internet schools for Montessori, and it is a sad story. They only realized that their “training” had not been accurate when their children failed to learn how to read.

There are also a number of failing Montessori schools out there, even a few AMI schools. I never thought that I would see such a thing. People kept watering down the curriculum, using inauthentic material, and then problems just multiplied.

Hence our plans to add many photos and videos. I really had not wanted to do these, but these original lessons must not be lost to history.