Questions?

If you cannot find your answer in these questions, please reach us below. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Contact us

Product

The first step in setting up a NatureTot System is to decide between two products:

  1. Purchase one of two products:
    · The Full NatureTot System: where everything is provided for you, including cabinets, curated materials and the online Masterclass
    OR
    · NatureTot System Masterclass: an online training course providing guidance on what materials and exercises are needed to integrate a simple cycle of life in your class.
  2. Once you have made either purchase, you are given access to any of our other products. You are also enrolled as a member of the NatureTot Community. This allows you to purchase any of our products at anytime.
  3. After your free community membership expires (3 or 6 months, depending on your purchase) you continue to get access to the course, community and products by maintaining your membership in the NatureTot Community for $9US/month.

The products are compatible with each other and will work on the Full NatureTot System, so you could build your system up over years. Happy building!

Yes, we understand that some schools are particularly limited in space. We have a new product coming for this! It is a compact variation of the Harvesting Cabinet, providing you with repetition and growing space but without the same space consumption. It is also modular, so you will be able to choose your size. This will work well for small classes or even families. Coming this spring!

The NatureTot Community helps you provide nature experiences in your prepared environment. It is an online group community that accessed within the course platform.

  • Purchasing any of the cabinet products gives you 6 months free access to the community.
  • Purchasing the NatureTot System Masterclass gives you 3 months free access to the community.
  • Access to the community (and the course) after these periods is $9/month.

There will be 4 live sessions available in the community in the fall and again in the winter semester, to assist you with implementation of the system.

The starter packs include:

  • Planting:
    • 2 month supply of pea and sunflower microgreen seeds
    • 1 bottle of food grade hydrogen peroxide
  • Composting:
    • 1 pack of industrial paper towels
  • Cabinet Care:
    • 1 bottle of rubbing alcohol to sanitize steel countertops

First, you should understand the composter worm is not a parasite. The composter worm plays an important role along with other microbes in breaking down dead plant and animal waste, turning these back into soil and making the nutrients available for new plants. The worms do not harm humans and in fact are beneficial.
Second, it has been shown that the composter worm actually removes harmful bacteria from the soil. So, while it is very important to keep a clean environment, the worms need not be frightening. In our NatureTot System Masterclass we have taken a meticulous and cautious approach to introducing these in your prepared environment.  We make several recommendations to keep the whole system clean and safe for you and your children without being cumbersome.

Yes, Montessori materials purchased as a stand-alone products will fit on cabinets purchased at a later date. Some of the materials (planting trays) will even fit on our new Compact Cabinet, to be released this spring! This means that you can build your system up gradually according to your budget or time.

The NatureTot system is designed and built to provide independence, spontaneity and repetition. Its size allows for multiple repetitions of an activity daily. Although there may sometimes be limitations on one exercise in order to manage the living cycle (plants may only be watered once, for example), there are several trays to be watered. It must be noted as well, that there are variations on repetitions of a basic practical life exercise, for example the spooning of seeds, soil, or eggshells, or the many different variations of watering included in the complete system.

A growing cycle of the microgreens from planting to harvesting is complete within about 14 days.

Please note that the cycles overlap each other as the plants progress in stages on the harvesting cabinet, and you can expect the children to work at the system throughout the week, planting, watering, harvesting daily.

A completed cycle of the microgreen waste in the composting cabinet can take a couple of months once the worms are well established, but of course, the harvesting cabinet offers daily exercises as well.

How to Use

The cabinets are finished with a high quality, water resistant and non-toxic finish, but like any wood product, standing water can damage the wooden surfaces.

We do recommend that you take plan to take steps to prevent water damage as soon as your cabinets arrive. This will keep your cabinets in pristine condition for many years.

  1. We have found that clear contact shelf paper is effective to keep standing water off the shelves.
    • It protects the shelf surface while allowing the beauty of the wood still shine through.
    • We recommend that you apply the contact paper immediately before use (while you are assembling the cabinets).
  2. We also include a small tube of silicone sealant,
    • apply to the wooden joints on the countertop, as you assemble the cabinet.

Instructions are included for both of these steps.

While we cannot say if this will meet your licensing requirements, we have had this in several classes without issue. Please be sure that you follow your licensing requirements. If you have questions please contact us for assistance.

You will need to devote some time to learn the system when it is first introduced to your classroom. However, once it is established, it will require only basic daily maintenance just as with any other material in your prepared environment. We offer tips and guidance on a daily checklist to help simplify this process for you and your assistants as much as possible. The benefits for the children and the happiness in your classroom will many times over balance the work you put into integrating this into your casa environment.

We realize that it is a significant cost per class to purchase a complete system, and you may be wondering if you can share this between classes. This system was designed and built for one class. Modifications could be made to your System if you found that sharing it between two classrooms was not working.

One of the strengths of this system is that it provides multiple opportunities for the children to repeat exercises, however even this repetition is limited, simply because there is not enough space in the system or care must be taken not to overfeed the worms. So while you may wish to share the system, it likely will not support repetition for extra large groups.

Our suggestion if you do decide to follow this path and find that the system cannot support both classrooms is to purchase a second harvesting cabinet, which is where the bottle neck in production will occur. You could also purchase a second worm bin to exchange in the composting cabinet if you found that your bin was overwhelmed by growing waste.

No, we think that in most cases you can prepare the system for the weekend by watering carefully before departure and immediately on return. Microgreens that grow beyond their best harvest period can easily be fed to the worms or to pets if you have any in your environment. The worms themselves can last many weeks without care, actually, so while not always advisable, it is possible to leave them for extended periods of time, once they are established. Before they are established, of course, they will require more attentive care.

The unique value of the NatureTot system is that it provides the children with the ability to independently engage and maintain a complete growing cycle, from soil, planting, growing, harvesting, composting to soil once again. It is this isolated focus on a nutrient cycle that allows the child a concrete, experiential understanding of the interdependencies in nature. Additionally, this nutrient cycle adds purpose and value to every exercise in the system because it becomes clear to the child that they are needed in the next stage.

While it is quite possible for you to set up in your classroom yourself, the NatureTot System is simply meant to make this a real possibility for our Montessori community. It adds elegance, beauty and functionality to your prepared environment that takes significant work to set up.

It must be added that there are many exercises that extend the value of any practical life, grace and courtesy, science, cultural and sensorial activity. You can expect this system to add incredible value to your prepared environment, beyond just caring for plants.

Purchasing and Account

Yes, absolutely. This makes good environmental and financial sense. We will remove duplicated products from the new product, if you have already purchased them, and reduce your costs. To help with this transfer, after you purchase your Harvesting Montessori Material package, you will receive a coupon for your expenses, minus taxes and shipping. The coupon will give you credit for your purchase and any duplicate materials will not be sent to you. Please keep your receipt. This same policy will apply to any Montessori Material product.

We recommend that customers wishing to purchase multiple purchases of the NatureTot System Masterclass or The Full NatureTot System complete the custom order form here,  and then we will contact you for a custom order. This will help us to find the right product fit for you.

If simpler, you may instead complete multiple purchases of the individual orders that you see on the shop pages.

As the care of the materials and cabinets is very much dependent upon the customer behaviour, we do not offer a warranty. If there are defects in manufacturing, please contact us immediately after delivery and we will work with you to fix this.

We do not offer a refund on cabinets or materials. You may cancel your order within 24 hours, if you have ordered something by mistake.

No, the online course is not refundable.

We do offer a generous free trial of the first two modules of the course, so you will have a better sense if the course is right for you or not.

You will be provided a link to access the course immediately, and you may begin study as soon as you wish.

The physical products will take longer. Currently, as we scale and develop our systems, delivery of the cabinets will take between 8 to 12 weeks. Learning materials will take 3 to 6 weeks for delivery.