12.3: Designing Preschool Environments

The design of the preschool environment must reflect the transition in growth and skills accompanied by the early childhood years, offering spaces that are not only safe and nurturing but also stimulating and engaging. The preschool setting should balance structure and flexibility, offering areas for both group activities and individual exploration. To achieve this, several key considerations must be taken into account.

Designing for Preschoolers Developmental Needs

The following table (12.3.1) is quoted directly from the Council for Professional Recognition (2023, p. 126), and reflects design elements that meet infant's and toddler's developmental needs.

Because children think and behave like this:	Arrange the space to do this:
Preschool children like playing cooperatively with other children	Offer activity areas that are large enough to play together and give children enough time to be fully engaged in projects. Promote inclusive play. Pay attention to how children naturally group themselves, being aware of bias and other hurtful interactions.
Children enjoy using their large muscles to climb, run, jump, throw, and kick balls	Provide indoor and outdoor spaces that are large enough for children to safely practice and perfect these skills.
They are working on refining their small muscle skills and eye hand coordination	Offer many opportunities to develop these skills. [For example] by setting up learning centers where children can turn pages in a book, build with Legos, complete a puzzle, weave streamers through a fence, and play a musical triangle.
They enjoy being independent and doing things for themselves	Display materials so that children can get them themselves. Provide play spaces where they can work on their own.

Inviting Engagement through Provocations

Can you make a ramp system that allows a ball (or something else that rolls) to go fast, slow and then fast again?
"Provocation to invite learning". by Heather Carter is licensed CC-BY-SA.	"Ramp system". by Heather Carter is licensed CC-BY-SA.

The following section is directly quoted from the Virtual Lab School (2023):

Offering items of beauty or wonder in the classroom invites children’s exploration and engagement. You can accomplish this by using provocations. A provocation is a picture, experience, or item that provokes thought, interest, questions, or creativity (Edwards, 2002). Provocations can help provoke children to use, think about, or see materials in new ways. When designing your classroom, it can be useful to think about how you will incorporate provocations. Your inspiration for what provocations to offer will often come from children’s current interests and their learning goals. Provocations might include:

• Pictures: Including pictures of children’s interests can help extend exploration of certain concepts and sends the message that children’s ideas are valued in your classroom. Use pictures of real items as much as possible. Also, when applicable, offer several different pictures. This allows children to recognize that not all trees look the same, or that some dogs have spots and others do not.
• An Event or Experience: For example, go on a field trip or a nature walk outdoors or host a “tea party” in your classroom. You can also take pictures during the event to display later. Using pictures of the experiences with which the children engage with one another in the learning environment communicates that this space belongs to the children. It also provides them with concrete documentation to reflect back on the experience.
• Books: Strategically placing books relevant to children’s current interests around the room can change how they engage in the space. For example, offer a book on robots next to a bin of recycled materials.
• Physical Items of Interest: Adding an authentic item as provocation can support what children already know about their world, or invite them to touch, smell, see or hear something new. This can include items from nature, such as leaves or nuts, or a vase of fresh flowers. Consider asking families to provide items from home, especially ones with cultural relevance like a piece of fabric or a paper lantern. Also, adding things like an old record player or piece of stained glass can elicit new discoveries.
• Simple Changes in Display: Considering a different perspective or design can spark new ideas for preschoolers. For example, placing an architecture drawing on the writing surface, rather than taped to the wall may encourage children to trace, measure, or highlight on the drawing.

Consider the placement of your provocations. What concepts are you currently exploring and how might a provocation in certain areas help extend or focus children’s play? Provocations are meant to be a guide or a point of inspiration for how children can engage with certain materials or spaces, but remember they are not meant to dictate what children are supposed to do in each area or with the materials. Children might be inspired or provoked to create ideas that take them in other directions. “The thinking and learning that emerge from the children as they engage with provocations will reveal potential threads of inquiry,” write Broderick and Hong (2020, p. 28). If children consistently ignore certain provocations, that can be a sign they are no longer interested in that particular concept or idea.

Example Floor Plan

"Preschool B" by Community Playthings in the Public Domain.

"Preschool B" by Community Playthings in the Public Domain.

References

Council for Professional Recognition. (3rd Eds.). (2023). Essentials for working with young children. First Printing.

Edwards, C. P. (2002). Three approaches from Europe: Waldorf, Montessori and Reggio Emilia. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 4(1). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED464766

Virtual Lab School. (2023). The indoor environment: Designing and organizing. Infants and Toddlers Learning Environments. Retreived from: https://www.virtuallabschool.org/inf...ments/lesson-2