Tutorial: Place Mats to Teach Place Setting to a Toddler in the Montessori Tradition

I've been wanting to teach my newly-three-year-old how to set the table for some time. Although I sew and could make the place mats myself, I found some place mats I've had FOREVER (and not used in over 10 years); they were just "begging" to be re-purposed! I've also recently discovered the joys of freezer paper stencils. What a great technique to create the outlines of a plate, cup, and utensils to guide the child in learning the placement of these items!

How can you make a set for your toddler and empower his/her independant spirit? It is so easy!

First, I made a template of 2 forks, a knife, and 2 spoons. I printed out the high-contrast template, placed the freezer paper over the template (shiny side facing down), and traced the utensils onto freezer paper. I traced around the actual plate and cup to create the circular stencils for those objects. I then cut the designs out - five sets of them for my five place mats. In the end, I decided we really weren't fancy enough to require 2 spoons and 2 forks at our meals!

I ironed the freezer paper stencils (shiny side down) to my place mat, checked that the edges were adequately "sealed", and the place mat was ready to paint!

Finally, I painted the silhouettes of the place setting, using a foam brush and fabric paint purchased at Michaels. I used navy blue to match the blue place mats.

After the paint was dry, I removed the stencils by simply peeling them off the surface of the fabric place mats! (The freezer paper does not leave a residue on the fabric.)

TA DA!!! My three-year-old sets the table for himself & our family!