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Table of Content

• Designing for All
• Creating a peaceful environment for young children
• Agencies
• Supporting Safe Home Environments
• Designing the Environment to Meet the Needs of a Mixed-Age Group of Children
• Creating a Child Care Environment that Supports Children's Exploration
• A Day in the Life of Your Program Questionnaire

Encouraging safe exploration is an important job for child care providers. They move quickly, put things in their mouths, drop or throw things, and love to climb and hide. But setting up an environment where you spend all day saying “Don’t touch this!

Some of us dislike places where we feel we cannot control or predict our experiences. In some spaces, we may feel like we do not belong or are not appreciated. Use some of the suggestions within this lesson to make your classroom feel comfortable yet engaging including neutral colors, soft furniture, and framed art.

Designing for All

This lesson also examines how to organize materials for independence, easy use, and learning. The reception area offers an opportunity to convey to parents, children, staff, and visitors that they are welcome. It should be inviting—reminding one of a home’s entry rather than an office lobby. It is a place where adults can obtain information, visit with each other, or have a cup of coffee.

Whether you are in a child care center or a family child care home, make your space safe for children. Store dangerous chemicals and medicines out of children’s reach. Cover electrical outlets, and store dangerous or breakable objects up high.

Creating a peaceful environment for young children

Identify features of the family child care environment that help children feel secure, welcome, and comfortable. Recognize that children and youth spend a lot of time in your program, and everybody needs a break sometimes. Provide a variety of ways that children can take a little time for themselves; a quiet book area, a computer center, or the art area can all provide a brief break from the busy, social day. This can be especially important to some children with special needs. Your effort to create a relaxing, homelike environment is critical.

However, when designing or redesigning your indoor space, it is also important to consider logistics, aesthetics, organization, and the needs of all children in the space. Our built environments, including child care settings, schools, and neighborhoods, can be sites of harmful chemical contamination. In fact, many toxic chemicals can be found in places where children spend time--home, child care, and school. As a family child care provider, you are in control of all aspects of your child care environment.

Agencies

In the dramatic play area, a small rug may be used under a dining table, in front of the sink, or beside the bed. Large size throwpillowsgrouped on the floor in preschool classrooms add color and texture and offer a place where a child can retreat to read a book, sit with a friend or two, or observe the group. Fabric choices include chintz, velour, velvet, satin, chenille, flannel, denim, jersey, and fake fur. Defined display areashelp organize art and other postings in the classroom. Children’s artwork, displayed at their eye level, can be matted to complement the colors in the picture.

Activity areas are key tools for learning within the family child care environment. You can use individual interests, goals, and abilities to design your activity areas. Refer to the Safe Environments and Healthy Environments courses for more information. Family child care providers may or may not hire additional staff to work in the child care home. Learn more about the 12 health and safety trainings that all adults caring for children should have.

Supporting Safe Home Environments

Twelve-month-old Isabella scoots herself over to the coffee table as her parents, Armando and Mariana sit near her. Cecilia, their home visitor, watches as Armando and Mariana encourage Isabella as she reaches for the coffee table and attempts to stand up. ” Mariana shares with Cecelia, “she’s been reaching at this table all week.” Cecelia picks up one of Isabella’s favorite toys and puts it on the table.

Strategically placing books relevant to children’s current interests around the room can change how they engage in the space. For example, offering a book on robots next to a bin of recycled materials can invite the construction of creative robotic structures. Both of my kids are beyond their age level of learning and a lot of it has come from home environment child care. I love the environment of the in home child care because there is more one on one time spent with the children to help them learn. My kids were always coming back home surprising me with words they learned in Spanish they both Excel in numbers shapes and talking. Identify and cut off “runways.” Long, narrow spaces — including open hallways and long aisles in the classroom — encourage running.

Infants and toddlers will use anything and everything in their environment as “materials” to learn from. Adults can support a child’s learning with items that they already have in their home. Just remember that infants and toddlers should always be supervised.

Baskets should not be made of materials that could poke or scratch children and should not be used to store materials that can fall out through the holes (e.g., crayons). The steps you take to organize for independence and easy use will also help you keep the space tidy, which can prevent safety hazards (e.g., tripping over materials). Children will know where materials belong, and they will not have to carry materials far from their storage spaces. Furthermore, these strategies help children and youth respect the materials and the classroom environment.