Designing For Preschool Indoor Environment: 3 Exclusive Tips

It is important to let a child feel calm and safe, especially when they are new to the environment. When designing and organizing the preschool indoor environment, you need to have a well-planned environment to help the child feel calm and secure.

The well-planned preschool indoor environment allows the child to feel secure, but the child will also be more engaged and curious with your activities in the preschool. Preschool is for children to attend and learn their basic knowledge before entering school, so you will have to consider the children when designing the preschool indoor environment.

If you are not an expert in managing preschool or are new to this field, you may be confused about what to do. We will be introducing some general ideas on designing the preschool indoor environment that you can consider. Besides that, it is important to consider other elements, such as logistics, aesthetics, organization, and the needs of the children.

1. Designing Preschool Indoor Environment for Logistics

Image Credit: Canva

When designing the preschool indoor environment, it can be divided into places for group activities, privacy, and storage.

Children learn through playing. It is important to have an area for group activities, such as storytime. Storytime helps to build classroom community and literacy skills. By having a designated area for these activities, the children tend to have less distraction. If you have a smaller classroom, you will need to be creative. You can minimize the distraction by covering shelves with sheets or adding a stop sign. As long as everyone is sitting comfortably, it will be just lovely.

For privacy, children sometimes need time and space to relax in private. You can have a cozy corner that is limited to one to two children to allow the children to calm themselves. You can consider using sheer fabrics or placement of the furniture to create a cozy area while still having good visibility for you to monitor.

The preschool indoor environment will have many materials to meet the children’s needs. The material will be used often, so it is important to have proper storage in the preschool indoor environment. It will be good to have at least three kinds of storage. One will be open storage for children to reach for their toys and books. Another one will be closed storage for the teacher to store their teaching materials. One more will be personal storage for teachers and children to keep their things.

2. Designing Preschool Indoor Environment for Aesthetics

Image Credit: Canva

It is important to let the children have a sense of belonging in the preschool indoor environment and have a home-like feeling. There are many ways to create a home-like preschool indoor environment. You can include soft furniture and cushions, plants, soft lighting, hang up the children’s drawings, or neutral paint colors. It can be overwhelming for the children to spend a few hours in the preschool, so creating a home-like preschool indoor environment is important for them.

You can also use provocations designs to invite children’s exploration and engagement. Provocation means using a picture, experience, or item to provoke the children’s thoughts, interests, and creativity. It can help the children to see things in a new way. You can think about how to incorporate the provocations into your preschool indoor environment. For example, use pictures that the children are interested in. It can help to explore certain concepts and send a message to the children that you value their ideas. Provocations is a guide to inspire the children on how they engage within the space.

When designing your preschool indoor environment, it is important to consider the children’s needs and their learning goals. Each time a new child comes in, you will need to consider what is the best to let them engage in the activities in the classroom. If the children have special needs, such as autism, you will want to discuss this with the child’s family. You need to ensure that your preschool indoor environment supports all the children who enter your classroom.

3. Designing Preschool Indoor Environment for Organization

Image Credit: Canva

It can be very frustrating and discouraging when the children cannot find the things they want or the material they want are unavailable. It is important to ensure that the materials are well organized and easily accessible. When you organize your preschool indoor environment, you can use these three goals as a direction: independence, easy use, and learning.

You will want the children to find and use the material themselves. The best way is to put the materials on the lowest shelf. You will need to use open shelves, which is easier for young kids. The children will be able to see the material on the shelves, take it and return it without asking for help. You can consider labeling the objects where the item is placed. It is best to use written words with pictures as some children may not be able to read yet. With the help of labeling, children can learn to clean up by themselves.

When organizing your preschool indoor environment, you will need to arrange it so children can use it easily. Let the children find the items when they need them. This allows the children to know that they can do things independently. Store the items that need to use together for certain activities, such as drawing, and you will need crayons, pencils, papers, etc. So why don’t you place all these items together? By organizing this way, you can tidy up the space without effort and ensure the pathway is clear for emergencies. Children will know where the items are and won’t go around searching for them. The children will learn how to respect the space.

Image Credit: Canva

Another important part of organizing is helping the children to learn. You will want to organize the preschool indoor environment in a way that can spark the children’s interest. A proper display can help the children explore or try new things with the proper items nearby. Don’t forget to display it at the children’s eye level and make sure the item is something that interests them. Try to rotate the items regularly so that the children can try out different things.

Here are some ideas when you are planning to design your preschool indoor environment. Ensure the environment is safe and meets the needs of the children.

Original Post: https://www.childcarerenovation.com/designing-preschool-indoor-environment/