DIY Cosmic Nesting Boxes.

Today, I want to show you our latest DIY: Cosmic Nesting boxes!

In Montessori, Cosmic Education is the idea that we are all interconnected. From the ages of 0-6 (the First Plane of Development), these lessons come in the form of being in nature and from sensorial learning materials. Children make assumptions and determinations about the world around them through exploration and experience. Then, in the Second Plane of Development, children are introduced to basic fundamental human needs and to the idea that we are all connected; we are all a part of a larger whole.

Cosmic Education starts with the ‘whole’ and works toward the ‘parts’. This helps with perspective and teaching children to understand the “big picture”. One way to show this is with Cosmic Nesting boxes. 

Nesting boxes are attractive for all ages! They are stackable, easy to store and who doesn’t love to build with them? Children can visually see which one “comes next” in the sequence which is a control of error. There are beautiful wooden materials that teach this concept and they are pricy! These boxes cost me $10 and I got this set at Michael’s though I’ve seen them at many different craft stores.

In this material, typically you see: Milky Way, Solar System, Earth, continent, country, state, county, town, child, energy, atom. If they are in classrooms, I’ve also seen them include the school’s name. I personalized them a bit so that it was specific to us so instead chose North America, United States of America, Massachusetts and so on. Instead of the box saying “child”, I wrote out my children’s names and rather than “energy”, I wrote out molecule. You can modify as you see fit when you DIY!

To prepare the boxes, I did some internet searches for the things I wanted to find. I scaled each picture smaller so that it would fit on the box I needed it to fit on (no quick fix here, it was a bit of trial and error.) Then I printed out the words I needed for labels. I chose to glue the picture on the box and glued the label on the lid. Eventually I might print out a second copy of each picture and label, laminate them all and add velcro to the backs plus a piece of velcro on one side of each box. That way, it’ll be a nice extension to this work and encourage everyone to use it in a different way.

So far, my children have been exploring this material, practicing with the language and using it as a stepping stone to more complex lessons. My five year old now wants to learn about the solar system so we’ll probably do that next.

Have you seen this work before? Are you familiar with Cosmic Education?