12.2: Designing Environments for Infants and Toddlers

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe the key principles of designing learning environments that support the developmental needs of infants and toddlers, focusing on safety, exploration, and stimulation.
• Identify specific environmental features and materials that promote sensory exploration, motor development, and early learning for infants and toddlers.

Creating an appropriate learning environment for infants and toddlers requires special attention and consideration of safety, developmental needs, and the nurturing of early exploration. This stage of development is foundational, as infants and toddlers are rapidly acquiring skills. The environment should offer both security and stimulation, allowing very young children to feel safe while fostering their natural curiosity. The following table (12.2.1) is quoted directly from the Council for Professional Recognition (2023, p. 117), and reflects design elements that meet infant's and toddler's developmental needs.

Designing for Infant and Toddler Developmental Needs

Table 12.2.1 Designing Infant and Toddler Environments to Meet their Developmental Needs

Because children think and behave like this:	Arrange the space to do this:
Young infants (birth-8 months) are attached to their family members.	Welcome family engagement. Include a space for nursing mothers. Display family photos at infants' eye levels. Provide greeting areas and furniture that invites adults to comfortably sit while interacting with children. Allow plenty of time at drop off and pick up to make the transition smoother for both children and families.
Young infants learn through moving their bodies and using all of their senses.	Offer soft, protected spaces where babies can move safely. Provide safe, appropriate toys that infants can reach and explore. Lift and carry babies so they can see, smell, touch, and feel items in the indoor and outdoor settings. Provide a variety of textures, scents, and vibrant materials to enhance sensory experiences.
Mobile infants (8-17 months) move from place to place.	Provide protected spaces where children can creep, crawl, and walk out of the way of infants who are not yet mobile. Have sturdy furniture and railings that infants can use to pull themselves up.
Mobile infants find comfort in familiar adults	Incorporate photos, tape recordings, and verbal reminders of family members. Use low room dividers so children can see adults whenever they need reassurance, and so adults can supervise all children at all times.
Young toddlers (18-24 months) often eat and sleep at scheduled times.	Have tables and chairs where small groups can eat together. Set up cots or mats at nap time and remove them when children are awake.
Young toddlers like to play close to another friend.	Provide play spaces where two or three children can work together on activities of their choosing.
Older toddlers (24-36 months) can climb, run, jump, and hop.	Offer open spaces and equipment where children can move freely and safely.
Like younger toddlers, older toddlers have a difficult time sharing.	Provide duplicates of favorite toys and materials. It would be helpful if duplicates are exactly the same color, size, and shape to avoid conflicts over materials.

Inviting Engagement through Provocations

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

"Offering items of beauty or wonder in the classroom invites infants’ and toddlers’ exploration and engagement. You can do 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 young 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, their emerging developmental skills (e.g., crawling or grasping), or their learning goals. Provocations might include:

• Pictures: Including pictures of interests can help extend exploration of certain concepts and send 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 nature walk outdoors or host a "picnic" in your classroom. You can also take pictures during the event to display later. Using pictures of 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 construction sites next to the blocks, or a book about babies next to dramatic play.
• 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: For example, add a child-safe mirror on the floor for children to see themselves as they crawl over, or set up the doll babies in dramatic play with small bowls and spoons, which can invite the older infants and toddlers to “feed” the dolls. For infants and toddlers, changes in display can also include rearranging climbing equipment to offer new challenges or incorporating different textures and colors on the floor.

Consider the placement of your provocations. What are you hoping infants and toddlers will do within each area of your classroom? What concepts are you currently exploring or developmental goals are you working toward, 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 infants and toddlers can engage with certain materials or spaces and are not meant to limit what children are supposed to do in each area or with the materials. Although you may have a clear intention for how the items will be used, the children may have a different plan. Not every provocation will interest every infant or toddler or provoke the kind of play you expect. The beauty in provocations is observing how each child uses it."

Example Floor Plans

Infants

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

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

Toddlers

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

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

Resources to Explore

• Creating a Child Care Environment for Success with specific suggestions for an effective physical environment.
• Beginning Workshop (2004) from Child Care Information Exchange. The document includes 15 pages and the articles:

• Creating Invitations for Learning by Deb Curtis
• Emergent Environments: Involving Children in Classroom Design by Sarah Felstiner
• Greenman, J. (2004). Great Places To Be a Baby: Infants’ and Toddlers’ Learning Environments. Child Care Information Exchange, (157), 46-48.
• Transforming Environments Through Self-Reflection by Wanda Billheimer and Gina Lewis

References

Resources to Explore was adapted from 1.9: Creating Environments- Scheduling and Overall Design Considerations by Susan Eliason. CC-BY-NC-SA

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