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(Unit 5) Topic 1: Environments that Nurture Children

1 Clock Hour of Early Childhood Education

Age Appropriate Environment

Topic 1 Page 7

Caring for young children begins with an understanding of child development so that you can anticipate the needs of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and school-agers up to age eight. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) offers the following advice: “To guide their decisions about practice, all early childhood teachers need to understand the developmental changes that typically occur in the years from birth through age eight and beyond, variations in development that may occur, and how best to support children’s learning and development during these years.” -NAEYC Position Statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (1996)

The specific design of each classroom is typically guided by the age and developmental stage of children and the program philosophy. Ages and developmental stages guide the classroom equipment, arrangement, furniture and equipment based on the daily routines, learning activities, and interactions between children and early childhood teachers. Thinking about the major developmental goals for the children and what you and the children do each day is a good way to develop a classroom environment that is effective and efficient.

Infant and Toddler Classrooms

Adults who care for infants and toddlers spend every moment both teaching and caring. In centers and family child care homes, early childhood professionals are simultaneously caregivers and teachers. Their work affects health, safety, development, and learning. They attentively care for a child’s well-being as they discover ways to support the individual child’s curiosity and exploration.

Infant and toddler teachers treat caregiving routines as learning opportunities, and set the stage for learning by providing developmentally appropriate, safe, inclusive, and engaging learning environments. They also introduce materials, make comments, offer suggestions, and ask the children questions based on their observation and study of a child’s learning and development.

Your role is not to teach, but to observe and reflect on what infants and toddlers are experiencing and how they learn.

Once the teachers have found out how the children learn they then support the process through interactions, relationships with the child, and provision of experiences in an environment that contributes to the child’s success. Effective teaching is rooted in an understanding that infants and toddlers are active, motivated learners who have their own curriculum. To facilitate discovery and exploration, teachers adapt to the strengths, abilities, needs, and interests of individual children. A responsive approach with every child, provides the key to including children with disabilities or other special needs in infant and toddler programs.

Infants

When caring for infants, provide spaces for daily care-giving routines and concrete exploration. Include soft spaces and areas to encourage attachment between early childhood educators and children. Provide equipment and materials to encourage the physical, language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Infants are developing their physical skills: learning to roll over, sit up, crawl, and walk. Older infants are beginning to vocalize and to develop language skills. A consistent environment provides infants with a sense of security and trust that is essential in developing attachments. You may need to separate the classroom so the young infants are safe while the mobile infants can explore.

Toddlers

Toddlers are walking, running, and beginning to express themselves. Toddlers are active explorers and investigators as they learn about their world through sensory and hands-on experiences. As active explorers, toddlers have a tendency to move at a rapid pace in areas that are open. Providing smaller classroom learning centers with defined boundaries is one way to reduce the tendency of running. Smaller areas help in preventing behavior issues that may occur if there are too many toddlers crowded in the same area.

Toddlers enjoy different sensory activities including playdough or water play. Toddlers require short open shelving units with accessible materials in open bins. Although toddlers like to dump materials they are learning about cause and effect and "dumping out" can be followed up with "pick it up." Since dumping is one of the toddler’s favorite activities, do not overload the baskets and containers with materials. A little goes a long way. Toddlers enjoy dramatic play with hats, purses, or shoes. Soft or cardboard blocks provide toddlers with opportunities to safely build a tower. Cars, trucks, baby dolls, and stuffed animals are additional learning materials to include in a toddler classroom. Books and a quiet area should also be available in your toddler classroom. Since toddlers are developing their large motor skills, you need to have a place in your classroom where it is safe for them to climb and explore.