Childhood Education Environment Design Of A Preschool Classroom

The article by Erika Christakis, informs future teachers and parents how preschool today may not be benefiting their children as much as they thought. She talks about how preschool has changed drastically over the years as well as kindergarten. She states that “kindergarten may be the new first grade”. Her statement shows how children today are expected more then they were years ago in all grades, especially preschool and at such a young age. Many think this is helping our children or will benefit them in the future if they know more as a child but this may not be the case. The article talks about multiple studies done throughout America to children are learning and how school curriculum changing affects children. A studied showed that children

The importance of the environment lies in the belief that children can best create meaning and make sense of their world through environments which support complex, varied, sustained, and changing relationships between people, the world of experience, ideas and the many ways of expressing ideas. The pre-schools tend to be filled with indoor plants and vines, and awash with natural light. Classrooms open to a central piazza, kitchens are open to view and access to the surrounding community is assured through wall sized windows, courtyards, and doors to the outside in each classroom.

Toddlers and preschoolers are at different developmental stages, and therefore require their teachers to use different approaches and techniques to further learning. I completed my observations at the Bright and Early Children’s Learning Center where I observed a toddler classroom and a preschool classroom. My observations took place from 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on the 21st and 28th of September. The first day that I observed I was placed in the toddler classroom which had two teachers, Miss Ashlynn and Miss Miranda, and six students, most of whom were two years old. In the preschool classroom there was one teacher, Miss Stephanie, and eight students, each of whom were 3 years old or 4 years old. While the rooms were physically similar, the teachers used different strategies and activities to appeal to the different age groups.

In the book Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, the authors, Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, and Mayumi Karasawa, look into preschools in three cultures: China, Japan, and the United States. Prior to writing this books, the authors did research on one preschool in each of the countries to see what the learning styles were and how they compared to one another. Then they went back some twenty years later to see if there were any changes in the preschools. The changes, or lack thereof, brought about the book Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited.

Well planned space is arranged to meet the needs of the children in the classroom. The Core of DAP suggests the teacher should consider what is known about child development, learning, individual children, and social/cultural contexts when designing a classroom. Many pieces of the environment can influence how a child feels in the classroom. The text Planning and Administering Early Childhood Programs states that “aspects such as color of the walls, type of

“Early roots of play as a best practice for early learning was documented by Plato, a Greek philosopher, who insisted that play is considered a natural activity of childhood.”(Ingrid Crowther, 2011, Pg. 2) Early Childhood Education is a term that refers to educational programs that are devoted to children from birth to the age of eight. “Children of this age learn by exploring and investigating; therefore, their environment should support and encourage this process.”(Rebecca Isbell and Betty Exelby, 2001, Pg. 11) Early childhood environments should be attractive and exciting. These environments should allow children to work and play using proper resources, materials, and tools.

The physical and emotional environment that we create for children has a huge impact on their development. Features to consider while planning the environment includes the following.

Materials and manipulatives are spread along the outside walls of the classroom and children are free to choose which type of materials they would like to work with during independent work time. You do not notice any individual desks and chairs set up in the classroom, rather a few tables and chairs grouped together. The furniture is all child size and you do not see any adult sized furniture throughout the classroom.

Environment has immediate effect on the quality of the children’s learning and development therefore it should be comfortable, interesting, attractive and appropriate for child or children who use it. There are a number of important factors to be considered while planning for safe indoor and outdoor environment but the most important ‘Every Child Matters’ i.e. everyone is an individual and may have particular needs. These different needs depend on their age and abilities. A suitable environment for a baby will be different from suitable environment for a three or four year old although some features will

According to our textbook Student teaching, “A quality program is one that exceeds rather than meets minimum standards for licensure.” To help us determine if a preschool classroom/program provides quality and to help us understand what quality means we were asked to evaluate and compare two preschool classrooms using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale. The classrooms I chose to evaluate and compare using the ECERS evaluation tool were the 4year old classroom at Naples Christian Academy and the 4 year old classroom at The Learning Center. Below is my comparison of both classrooms using the ECERS evaluation tool.

Early years practitioners have to support children’s development and learning, through right materials, equipment and resources, also the practitioners needs to work with the colleagues to do better plans and create better play environments. Working with other can create flexible spaces for both indoors and outdoors spaces, so children can set of connections and converted for different uses in diversity of ways. The light is very important for children in early years settings because if the sun comes to child’s face during the play time or story time in the room, it will be difficult for the children to become engage. So the lighting needs to be very good for children to see everything well and it changes the atmosphere.

In the example using the preschool substitution for parental interactivity idea, there are other factors to consider that foster the educational environment of learning such as educational level of the parents, access to health care, the amount of green space, the danger to safety ratio and the number of parents in the home with still further relationship determinants to review. The students have so many factors that may or may not act in their lives, affordances as taught by James Gibson. The truth of the matter remains that in this theological concept that the environment can only provide assistance to the extent to which the actor uses the environmental

I feel like the best way to describe what a Piagetian preschool would like is an interactive learning environment. The children would learn through hands on actives. With the hands on nature of the classroom, they can practice skills that will be the foundation of their knowledge. An advantage to hands on activities, is that you can give brief instructions for the children to follow but, then they would be free to learn independently. I feel like there would be some success to this learning environment because the children are able to learn by doing things independently and gaining a better understanding of the world around

BJBee’s Preschool Mission: To promote full and equal participation in the education and learning environment regardless of racial and ethnic background, socioeconomic status, disabilities, sexual orientation, or families of different gender identities. BJBee’s Preschool is committed to valuing diversity by providing equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children and families. We respect and value the linguistic, cultural and religious diversity which exists in the community. We are committed to challenging attitudes that promote racial discrimination, ensuring respect for all and preparing all children for life in a culturally diverse society. Diversity in the classroom and school must nurture an inclusive learning environment and culture.

It has been well established that early childhood is a crucial time for children’s cognitive development (Bowman, Donovan & Burns, 2001). Preschool curriculum is the entire span of lessons and teachings that a child will be taught during the course of a preschool year (Rock, 2015). Preschool curriculum covers a wide variety of academic, social, physical, and emotional lessons and usually vary from school to school and teaching method to teaching method. Depending upon the school and the preschool philosophy employed by the preschool, the preschool curriculum can be developed by administrators, teachers, and parents.