A PRESCHOOL CLASSROOM

Planning an Enviroment

PLANNING THE ENVIRONMENT Look at the classroom from a child's point of view and try to comprehend what it might be like for them.

Imagine ways that would make them feel more comfortable and then apply them physically.

*SEPARATE NOISY FROM QUIET AREAS*CLEARLY DEFINE THE AREAS WITH FURNITURE, SHELVES, OR OTHER THINGS.*PLACE KEY MATERIAL AT CHILD HEIGHT*SEPARATE TEACHER AND CHILD MATERIALS*THINK LOGICALLY ABOUT THE NEEDS OF EACH AREA*KEEP ALL AREAS OF THE ROOM VISIBLE TO THE TEACHER*THINK ABOUT TRAFFIC PATTERNS*THINK: ORGANIZED, NEAT, COLORFUL, AESTHETICALLY PLEASING, UNCLUTTERED, AND COMFORTABLE.

Physical Setting:Children should find themselves surrounded by

a physical setting that:*stimulates their intellect

*arouses their curiosity

*improves thinking/problem solving

*leads to dramatic play

*provides for physical activity

*requires manipulation

*inspires creative expression

*demands communication of ideas

*calls for sharing and cooperation

*broadens human relationships

Patterns to work with in Early Childhood Environments:

1. Child's eye view;This concept is towards balancing adult-child perspectives in which children may easily make eye contact with the teacher by standing or turning. It includes space lowered in scale down to children's body sizes and eye levels.

2. Forms of life, including those of diverse cultures:

Materials for experiences indoor and outdoor environments that represent real life activities and living things. Plants, small animals aquariums etc. are all examples of opportunities to care for living things. Forms of life include representation of objects and experiences in children's daily lives similar to photos. Materials like clay, blocks, and paints help children represent these forms. Materials and visual displays like rocks, shells, and seeds are all things of nature and help reflect the cultures in society.

3. A Sense of Welcome:

Opportunities that offer a place for children, teachers, parents, and others to be greeted, invited in and offer a view of the many choices in the environment make children and parents feel safe and secure. Sending a message of the value of teachers, parents and children are very important.

4. Pathways

:

There are clear routes of travel between

areas in the environment

so that children may scan choices and change

locations with interfering

with others.

5. Activity areas:

This is referring to areas of indoor and outdoor space designated for specific activities, like dramatic play, blocks, reading along with many others.

6. Boundaries:Ways of marking off areas of the environment to protect the interactive space of the children playing and working in those areas. Shelves, bulletin boards in reach of children, tables, and cloth can be used to mark those inside areas. Plants or other landscaping can mark the outside areas.

7.Private and group spaces:Children and adults need places where they can retreat from the world and work alone or with others. Opportunities to balance small group and large group interaction should be provided in the physical environment.

8. Invitations to complex learning:Teachers often set up materials in ways that suggest complex and creative usage. Just setting out different

materials for the free use of the children will help this be possible for the children to experience.

9. A Sense of Choice:Choice is one of the major features like play to success in academic subjects. Through making choices, children learn to take initiative, to follow through on their decisions and to plan and then evaluate

their experiences.

10. A sense of Potential:Areas that are unfinished attract children's minds and sense of

responsibility.

11. Soft Space:These types of areas need to appeal to the senses and aesthetics of children. Fabrics, carpets, pillows, rocking chairs, grass, sand and trees, provide opportunities for close conversations, reading

or daydreaming or a place to play with a friend.

12. Environmental Literacy:Materials and play accessories that underscore everyday literate

activities add to the environment literacy of a room. A pad of paper and pen by the phone in the playhouse, a list posted in the art center for needed supplies, menus and order pads for the restaurant theme box and patient charts and waiting room magazines for the hospital

theme are only some examples.

This is a Dramatic Play area in a preschool facility.

Dramatic Play

Reading Center

It is important to have books out for children to have access to.

This is some equipment on an outdoor playground.

Outdoor Play Area

It is important to have good equipment outdoors as well as indoors.

Indoor Play Area

Having toys that are strictly for indoors in important to provide for children.

Indoor Toy Shelf