Design v Order

Design has to do with the way things are physically arranged for the purpose of safety, ease and efficiency.  Order, however, can be a subjective term, defined differently by individual teachers.

Creating an appearance of order in the classroom makes the teachers’ job of assuring safety, managing unsafe behaviors, planning experiences, and assessing progress and need easier and more efficient. Many educators believe a sense of physical order also affects the quality of the learning itself.  Order is helpful in developing skills of categorizing, sorting, counting, identifying, naming, connecting or matching objects to concepts, and determining the placement of materials for easy and accessible storage. Labeling materials and their storage areas is helpful in gaining literacy skills. Order can be helpful to individual children who need assistance with attention span and focus and those who need routine and structure to discourage distracting behaviors.

Many teachers prefer a somewhat loose or less structured sense of physical order believing the children themselves will create their own system of managing their learning and behavior and may even tend to be more independent, efficient, and creative because they have increased ownership of the environment.

Organized Chaos v. Chaotic Organization

Without a doubt in my mind, one of the greatest preschool teachers I know, was Sharon Poteat (just called Poteat by her twos and threes). Poteat’s room was a DISASTER in the eyes of most adults. Walls were covered with huge pieces of chart paper listing quotes from her children like MY FAVORITE VEGETABLE; WHAT DO YOU CALL YOUR MOMMY’S MOMMY?; and WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE LEFT ICE CREAM ON THE PLAYGROUND? Children’s artwork hung from the ceiling, sat in the windowsills, and adorned the shelves – even in the bathroom. Her children took their shoes off during dress up and wore pirate and princess costumes to the playground and chapel. What resulted year after year were children who delighted at coming to school where they felt free to create, experiment, discover, and explore; children who knew words meant thoughts and ideas and THEIR words were important; and parents who were so happy with their children’s accomplishments, they recommended Poteat to every new parent who came along, some sending new siblings year after year.

On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for a strict order to ‘stuff-putting’. The best examples are the classrooms of Montessori in which every piece of material and equipment is stored and labeled with careful precision, and the classrooms using the Reggio Emilia approach. The minimalism of Reggio is inspiring. A minimal look to a classroom allows the children to design the environment – have ownership of the environment – by use of their own art and words.

As long as the children can have easy access to the materials (limited in number to encourage turn-taking, but sufficient in amount not to cause frustration) and can age-appropriately take part in restoring the order at the end of the day, teachers should stuff the stuff where it is best for learning.

Next Blog: NO LEARNING CENTERS?!?!?! Are You Nuts?????

 

 

Materials and Equipment – I don’t think it is necessary to talk about ALL the materials and equipment needed in a classroom except to say that the ‘stuff’ you use must be:

• Safe and Age Appropriate
• Suited to gaining the specific Strength Expectations of the Program
• Clean and Well Maintained
• In sufficient number/amount so all children can have access to it

Let’s Talk About Toys – Classrooms must be equipped with equipment and materials through which children can learn by these Learning Methods:

• Movement
• Sensory Exploration
• Manipulation
• Construction
• Role Play
• Expression

The materials that are offered to the children should be open-ended and raw, rather than plastic, primary-colored, one-answer-only “toys”. In some German childcare centers, the teachers institute “NO TOY” days, during which the children must use their imaginations and raw, real objects to create learning experiences. What a wonderful way to create truly valuable child-centered learning!

Classrooms must be filled with books.

Classrooms must be decorated with children’s art and words.

Classrooms should be filled with natural materials in all shapes and textures.

Classrooms should be filled with REAL objects (both natural and man-made) that invite questions and do not automatically give answers; objects that encourage wonder; objects that can be moved and moved with; objects that can be felt, seen, heard, and even smelled and tasted; objects that can be ‘messed’ with; objects that can be built with and taken apart and made into other things; objects that can inspire creativity and imagination; and objects that can be used in dance, song, art, and verbal expression.

Admit it, preschool teachers are natural hoarders. We tend to keep everything that is given to us – and everything we find in other people’s trash – in the hope that it will make a great learning tool. If your program has storage for egg cartons, potty paper, paper towel, and tin foil tubes, food storage containers and lids, scraps of material, scarves, hats, costume jewelry, and the like, then keep it! This stuff, plus nuts, bolts, locks, keys, (things the Reggio teachers call ‘loose parts’) old appliances with unsafe parts removed, and natural items like rocks, leaves, pine needles, maple seed pods, and all the other things ‘normal’ people see as junk ARE the best learning tools.

Next Blog: Setting 3 – Where to Stuff the Stuff

The creation of Educational Safety depends on careful physical organization of the learning environment that is determined by the use of space, quality and variety of materials and equipment, and the number of children in the learning community.

I talk about the elements of choice and arrangement of furniture, equipment and materials in a preschool classroom in terms of safety, space, spaces, and stuff.

Safety – Obviously everything in a learning community for young children must be chosen and arranged with the purpose of keeping the children safe. It’s just common sense that the furniture and equipment purchased, donated, or available must be developmentally appropriate for the level of the community. This may be harder for home day care centers than public, privately owned businesses, and government or faith-based schools, but basic safety is the first and most important element in design. Sometimes overlooked items are splinters in tables, use of folding chairs, tippable shelves, peeling paint, sharp corners, and toy parts that may choke.

As for the arrangement of furniture, look at the community from the point of view of the children who will be in it. Get down on the floor and see what they will see and want to lick, bite, eat or climb on and see what they may not see and bump into. For both choice of materials and equipment and its arrangement, keep in mind what you know about the developmental behaviors of each age level. (Babies put everything in their mouths, Toddlers may run away, Twos may throw stuff, Threes are clumsy, Fours have horizontal vision – they see the horizon before what is immediately in front of them and their energy level moves them toward it – and Fives may enjoy taking things apart to see how they are made or work).

I used the word, ‘obviously’, but I have seen some incredible preventable accidents involving equipment, materials, and design – Fat little baby thighs pinched in high chairs, a teacher’s aide cooking soup in a crock pot on a shelf above an Infant’s crib, tiny Lego blocks instead of less edible-size Duplo blocks for Toddlers, a teacher using spray paint in a closed classroom full of Twos, Threes climbing up the front of unanchored shelves, storage of cleaning solutions on bathroom floors, giving a five-year-old an Exacto knife for making Valentines, and many, many, hanging, reachable, or visible extension cords being used to plug in electrical appliances.

Keeping the children alive is our basic mission. Safety is the number one priority.

Space and Spaces – It sometimes seems that there is never enough space in a preschool classroom – and if there is space, it seems as if administrators always want to sneak more little bodies into it. Generally speaking, you need to have 35 square feet of indoor space per child. Find the area (measure width by length) count your children, and figure it out. That’s your space.

There are definite functional spaces that you need to make space for in your community. For Infants (birth – 6 mos.), Babies (7 – 12 mos.), and Toddlers (12 – 24 mos.) these spaces are Eating/Feeding, Sleeping, Hygiene, Personal Storage, and Play, with Play including indoor and outdoor spaces and enlarged as the children grow in size and mobility.

For Twos through Fives, the spaces change to Eating, Hygiene in the form of a bathroom with toilet and sink, Personal Storage that is accessible to the children, and Play including outdoor spaces, of course, and indoor areas made up of space for Whole Group activities, Small Group activities, and a Safe Space that is NOT a ‘naughty spot’ for misbehaving learners, but a private space for a child needing rest, respite, or relaxation.

Note: Not talking about Learning Centers here, but classroom spaces.

Next Blog: Setting 2 – Stuff