DIY Montessori-Inspired Nature Station
Bringing nature into your home is a simple yet powerful way to foster curiosity, observation skills, and a deep connection to the natural world.
A nature station—also known as a nature collection or display—is a designated space where children can gather, observe, and interact with the treasures they find from outdoors. This is a great way to make room for children to iteract with nature in endless ways, from scientific observations to beatiful seasonal crafts to loose parts games and imaginary play!
Here is a quick guide to help you set up an engaging and child-friendly nature station, the Montessori way!
Keeping Montessori in Mind
In a Montessori class, the Nature table is a special and intentionally designed space that invites children to explore, observe and interact with nature up close and in meaningful ways.
Key principles of the Montessori method integrated into the Nature Table include:
Order (items are clearly related, grouped, and organized)
Beauty (nature items on display are high quality, not frail, old, or decaying)
Accessibility (items are placed within easy reach for children to remove and return tehmselves)
Independence (children can explore the station safely with little to no supervision needed from an adult, once preliminary introductions have been completed)
Choosing the Perfect Location
Your nature station at home doesn’t have to take up a lot of space. As long as it aligns with the above principles, it can take whatever shape and form works best in your household and for your children.
For many years, our family nature station resided on top of and inside the cubbies of a low bookshelf in our homeschool area. For smaller display items, we used windowsills!
I would recommend choosing an area that you don't mind the kids freely exploring in.
Some possibilities can be:
A low shelf or small table in the living room, playroom, sunroom, or mudroom
A windowsill or sunny corner for displaying plants, seeds, or small flowers.
A designated tray or basket that can be moved around and explored freely.
An outdoor space such as a covered porch or patio where children can rotate their nature finds.
Storage and Display
Beautiful yet functional storage options are key when it comes to making your nature station inviting for the children and practical to manage.
You want items to be easy to remove and explore while also being visually appealing so it doesn't become an eyesore against the rest of your home.
Here are some ideas to play around with:
Shallow baskets or wooden bowls and trays for arranging your nature items in an organized way.
Glass jars or clear containers for holding treasures like feathers, shells, or dried flowers.
A wooden sorting box with compartments for categorizing smaller items such as seeds, pebbles, or bones.
A magnifying glass and small identification guide to encourage closer observation.
Clipboards and paper for children to sketch or write about their collections.
Tweezers and Grabbers for handling more fragile items
A Kid-Friendly Microscope for even more up close and detailed looks
A Woven Mat to place nature items on while exploring (this also helps keep your home clean from nature debris!)
Q-tips and Soft Rags nearby for dusting nature items that have been on display for a while
Feel free to mix and match these ideas as they work for you and your space. And make sure to have storage options for a varity of sizes too! I found great use out of glass jars, and wooden compartment boxes. And we always had shallow baskets on hand for when we went collecting. Clear plastic craft boxes with lids also helped us preserve collections that became larger over time, like our seashell and rock collections.
What to Include in a Nature Station
What goes on display in your nature station is really up to your and your children.
Encouraging them to collect a select few natural objects that spark their curiosity or awe when you go for nature walks or spend time in natural places helps stock the station quickly. My children loved to collect items while hiking or speding the day at the beach, and our station was filled with various rocks, feathers, and shells because of it.
But you can also add items from special activities or gifts that others give you. Rabbit hides, snake skins, fossils, and coral skeeltons have all appeared in our nature collections because of extended family mmebers who would find cool items and send them my way for the kids.
Here are a few common nature items that can be included easily:
Leaves, flowers, and seed pods
Shells, pebbles, and interesting rocks
Pinecones, acorns, and tree bark
Feathers and delicate insect wings
Pressed flowers or dried herbs
Bird nests (if found abandoned)
Leaning into seasonal themes helps guarantee a beautiful collection year-round. Flowers and seeds in Spring, edible weeds and berries in Summer, colorful leaves, cones, and mushrooms in Autumn, and feathers, nests, bark, and rocks in Winter.
Rotating and Repurposing Items
Some children can be quite the collectors and will enjoy amassing large amounts of nature items. I remember my sons literally filling their pockets and backpacks with rocks every time we went hiking.
While you don't want to discourage their enthusiasm, you will need to find the balance between their energy and your needs for order and beauty in the home.
Rotating items in and out helps keep the display manageble. You can have a set rule about new things equals new things out. Or simply rotate as the seasons change. For beloved collections (like my 13-year old's feather collection), you can agree to keep a set number on display while the rest go into a closed bin in a different space that is accesible when they want, but not taking up space in the main display.
Repurposing items is another way to keep things manageble while still giving opportunities for the children to explore their items. When my now 9-year-old was in his rock-hound phase, we kept his rocks on display for a time and then repurposed them into markers for bingo games, pieces for outdoors tic-tac-toe, crafted with them, and even used some of the prettier ones around the house to display in our potted plant containers.
This helps the children see and experience new ways to use nature items and integrate them seamlessly into other areas of their lives.