Room Arrangement

Classroom environments for young children need space-space for active children and space for a variety of materials and equipment.  The classroom needs storage space in which children can learn through their own actions, space in which they can move, build, sort, create, spread out, construct, experiment, pretend, work with friends, store belongings, display their work, work by themselves, and work in small and large groups.  The arrangement of this space is important because it affects everything the children do.  It affects the degree to which they can be active and to which they can act out their plans.  It affects their relationships with other people and the ways in which they use materials.

The arrangement of a High Scope preschool classroom, in which we have adopted, reflects the belief that children learn best in a stimulating but ordered environment in which they can make choices and act upon them.  The classroom is divided into four well-defined work areas, and the materials in each area are logically organized, which enables the children to act independently and with as much control over the classroom environment as possible.

Room Arrangement coincides with the importance of following a Daily Routine.

The Importance of a Daily Routine

"What happens next?"

"What do we do next?"

"When will it be time to…?"

"When do we get to go to the Gym?"

A daily routine helps children answer these types of questions by providing them with a consistent schedule of events they can depend on and understand.  It also helps adults organize their time with children to provide active and challenging learning experiences.  The parts of a daily routine are like stepping-stones on a path.  A consistent daily routine allows enough time for children to pursue their interests, make choices, and decisions and solve problems.  The Centers in the classroom provide a structure for the physical space and the daily routine provides a structure for the events of the day and the security of predictable sequences of events, smooth transitions from one activity to the next and consistency in adult expectations and support throughout the day. 

The consistency of a well-established daily routine is particularly important in early childhood settings because young children face separation from their parents. While they have little control over their parents’ comings and goings, the children have considerable control over what they do in a routine with predictable events, clear expectations and limits and adult support.

The key elements of the High/Scope daily routine include a variety of active learning periods with a good range of experiences and interactions.  These periods include small and large group activity times, Plan-Do-Review and outside times.  Active learning occurs in a reasonable, predictable sequence that meets the needs of the particular setting.  A consistent daily routine enables children to construct knowledge and provides them with a psychologically safe and purposeful environment.   When children can recognize and anticipate the consistency of their classroom routine, they anticipate upcoming events and look forward to them.

Welcome to the Block Area!

Almost all children enjoy playing in the Block Area.  Many play very vigorously in this area, taking up lots of space. A road race may extend from one end of the block area to the other or hospital play may involve numerous patients, staff, and “beds.”  This highly social play is normal and important.  At the same time, other children may be playing very quietly with the blocks, exploring and arranging them by themselves in their own space.  This quiet, solitary play is equally important and necessary.  Young children enjoy taking blocks off the shelves, heaping them into piles, lining them up, stacking them, loading them into cartons, dumping them out, carrying them and fitting them carefully back onto shelves.  As children play on their own and with others, they experiment with balance, patterns, and symmetry.  Teachers recognize and support their exploration, imitation, spatial problem solving, sorting, comparing, and pretending.

Welcome to the Creative Area!

This popular area has three important elements within it.

Manipulatives

This is a place where children play with simple games, puzzles and sets of manipulative that can be used in a variety of ways.  Working on their own or near others, children use these materials in simple and complex ways.  They explore, fill and empty containers, put together and take apart small structures, sort and match, count and make patterns.  It is a place to repeat and expand skills.  Since our “active learners” are creative problem solvers, a child in this area may make a house for the counting bears out of dominoes, or make a birthday cake with candles out of the pegboard and pegs.  Children return again and again to this inviting area to use the same manipulatives in new and different ways.

Art

This is a place where the children are encouraged to explore many different kinds of materials.  Creativity, problem solving, personal expression and decision-making are the cornerstones of this area.   It is so much more than just a place to paint and draw.  They stir, roll, cut, twist, fold, flatten, drip, blot, fit things together and take them apart, combine and transform materials in order to carry out their ideas. Their imaginations “come to life” here.  They can communicate their ideas and experiences with the materials in this well stocked area. Young artists make pictures, books, movie tickets, hats, birthday cakes and many other pretend play props.  At PALS, the end product is important, but the real value lies in the process and the problem solving the children experience as they create their masterpieces.

Water Table

The processes of filling, pouring, mixing and dumping are repeated over and over in children’s play.  The water table is just the place for this kind of exploration.  Teachers fill the tables with all kinds of interesting materials to fill and dump such as colored water, bubbles, beans, rice, sand and even snow when weather permits. Children are fascinated with the motions and effects of filling and dumping.  Sometimes they dump just for the sake of dumping, finding satisfaction and comfort in the simple process of manipulating and controlling familiar materials.  Water table play provides these opportunities for the children, as well as the chance to learn math concepts, spatial relations, solve problems, engage in social interaction and use language to describe these experiences.

Welcome to the House Area!

Children spend considerable time in this area---stirring, filling, emptying, mixing, zipping, buttoning, snapping, trying things on and taking them off.  They re-enact important events in their lives, such as having a birthday party, going shopping, a visit to the dentist, weddings, picnics, and dressing up to “go out.”  By providing a setting for role-play, the house area allows children to make sense of their immediate world.  They have numerous opportunities to work together, problem solve, express their feelings, and use language to communicate and respond to one another’s needs and requests.

Welcome to the Quiet Area!

Here, the children look at and read books.  Children may read books from sight, memory or picture cues. They also listen to stories, make up stories, and write their own stories in their own ways. For many children this is a cozy spot where they can look at books and magazines either by themselves or with friends.  Children’s literacy develops naturally in settings where reading is an intimate “homelike” experience and books and writing materials are freely available.  The development of language is the foundation of this area.  Through listening to stories and poems and having fun with language, children are encouraged to use language to convey their feelings and desires, ask questions and think about things, represent what they know and talk about imaginary situations.  At the same time, they are mastering grammar, constructing the meaning of specific words and “reading” and “writing” in a way that makes sense to them.  Also found in this area are a variety of “quiet” manipulatives such as puzzles, lacing cards, and puppets! 

Computers are also very popular in this area!  There are many programs especially designed for young children.  They can draw, play matching, comparing, counting and memory games, make up patterns, “drive” cars and trains and write their own stories.  This area encourages social interaction.  As children work at computers, they often share games, ideas and discoveries and rely on one another to solve problems.  Children who experience success at the computer will often, by their enthusiasm, attract others to join them in the computer activity.  Anxious to demonstrate their expertise, these children may encourage a more reluctant or shy child to use the computer.