Making a Childcare Learning Environment

Exploring the physical environment comprises a great deal of the learning factors for mobile infants and toddlers. We must consider the impact of environment on children and caregivers, and learn to design spaces that contribute appropriately to children's development. Many classrooms are simply not designed to meet the developmental needs of infants and toddlers in group care, nor do they support teachers in their role as facilitators of children's learning and self-directed play. A well-designed environment can have enormous positive impact on the well-being of both children and teachers. Childcare furniture Australia is essential for daycares in order to create a pleasant environment for learning children.

Sculpting the classroom into defined multilevel activity areas encourages individual and small-group play without herding all the children from one activity to the next. While easily supervised by the caregiver, these semi-enclosed activity areas provide for private and semiprivate environments which are critical to the development of the young child's self-concept and personal identity. Much of the aggression and breakdowns that children experience in group care can be traced to the stress of being in a large group for upwards of ten hours a day, five days a week. Creating spaces where children can retreat in privacy can help to alleviate this stress.

When undertaking a major remodel or designing a new child care facility, you have the opportunity to create classroom and building layouts that will add to, rather than detract from, a developmentally designed program. Visiting existing child care centers can be an important part of the design process; however, creating a formal and deliberate written program for the space provides assurance that the goals for the center will be addressed and incorporated into the design. A well-thought-out program provides a set of criteria-pertaining to age groups, group size, ratios, child and adult activity areas, room sizes, and other specifics-on which the design is based and by which it is later evaluated. It allows for the clarification of objectives and the definition of expectations about the child development program, addressing questions and concerns before construction takes place.

Children in group care environments require adequate space in order to move, grow, and learn. In classrooms that are too small, lack of appropriate childcare furniture can result children to behave more aggressively and have a higher incidence of discomfort and illness. They are less focused, engage in more aimless wandering, and interact less with others. Infants and toddlers spend much of their time on the floor. For safety and comfort, the majority of the classroom should be carpeted, with the exception of the entrance, diapering and bathroom areas, and eating and messy play areas. Using a low-pile, neutral-colored, anti-microbial carpeting is necessary in order to prevent the growth of fungus and mold in the area. Ventilation is needed for children not to be crowded in one certain area but to be able to breath and create wellness during their learning activities. A well-designed childcare furniture and its facility provides appropriate natural and mechanical ventilation, such as windows that open, ceiling fans to circulate the air, operable skylights, and central air that uses mostly fresh, rather than recirculated, air. Because children love to observe, each classroom should have several child-height windows, childcare furniture Australia allowing children to feel visually connected with the outside, and engaging them throughout the day.