Know

As discussed in the previous lesson (Learning Environments: An Introduction), environments send us powerful messages. A carefully planned environment can help school-age children feel calm and secure, while at the same time, engaged and inquisitive. Within the first lesson we introduced general ideas to consider when designing environments for school-agers and key activity areas that foster child and youth learning. 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.

计划的室内空间应满足儿童和青年的需求，并让他们探索他们的兴趣并采取主动性。室内环境应（理事会认证，放学后和青年发展）：

• 安排各种活动
• 对儿童，青年和员工的个人物品有足够的存储空间
• Have developmentally appropriate materials in well-organized places that allow children and youth to take materials out and return them by themselves
• Have appropriately sized furniture that children and youth can use comfortably
• 显示儿童的艺术品，家庭照片或其他装饰，使得空间感到个性化和家庭
• Have an area with soft seating for children and youth to rest or be alone

In addition, these environments should be safe and healthy. Maintaining a safe and healthy indoor learning environment should be done on a daily basis by completing your program’s safety checklists, ensuring all materials and equipment are in working order, and maintaining expectations that keep children and youth free from harm. When designing your space, make sure that you can supervise all areas, including private spaces. Refer to the Safety and Healthy courses for more information.

物流设计

In your school-age environment, you will need spaces for group activities, privacy, storage, and display.

集团活动的地方

Children and youth likely spend much of their formal school day with little choice in how they spend their time, so they often look to their “after-school” or “summer camp” environments to provide more autonomy. Indeed, free play is important for children’s development and should be a significant part of school-age programs (Frost, Wortham, & Reifel, 2012). However, this does not mean your program should lack structure or that providing some more structured activities is inappropriate, especially if children have a choice in the structured experiences they select. Participating in engaging, yet structured, school-age programs has been linked to children’s positive academic outcomes and greater motivation for learning (Mahoney, Lord & Carryl, 2005).

支持结构化活动,你应该计划areas that support large group meetings. Depending on the size of your school-age program, whole-group meetings may be relatively rare or even impossible, however, you will want some spaces that support smaller group meetings where you can bring a number of children together to help build relationships and teach skills or concepts particular to interests they are exploring. Children can even be presenters during this time, sharing a new technique, relevant research, or book they found. Having designated spaces for these activities and designing them to minimize distractions can help you make the most of these times. This doesn’t mean you have to have a spot that is used just for group activities. In some smaller environments, this simply is not possible. Staff members in such classrooms can get creative! The toy and games area could become a perfect space for group meetings. Simply covering the shelves with sheets, flipping around shelves on wheels, or adding a stop sign can help minimize distractions and support children’s successful engagement with the group. In other programs, the music and movement or gymnasium space may make a natural home for large group activities. Just make sure there is enough space for everybody involved to sit comfortably.

隐私的地方

School-age programs are high-energy places. Similar to adults, children sometimes need time and space to relax on their own; especially after being in formal school, school-age children may crave some down time. You can help children and youth meet this need by offering spaces that are limited to one or two children. The library, a cozy corner, quiet games, or other spaces in your room can help children calm themselves.

Places for Storage and Display

学龄程序需要大量的马特里als! Toys, books, games, and other resources are regularly rotated in and out of active use. It is important to plan for at least three kinds of storage in your school-age program: open storage that children and youth can easily access, closed storage for teacher materials, and storage for personal belongings (Dodge et al., 2010). It is also important to plan for storage and display of children’s assessment materials and art work.

• Open storage: Store materials that are in active use on open, labeled shelves. As discussed below, open storage promotes accessibility.
• Closed storage：当不使用时，安全地存储办公用品，炊具或清洁液等工具。为这些项目指定和仔细标记安全位置非常重要。这将有助于您维护库存并确保儿童的安全。
• Personal storage: Children and adults need spaces to store their personal belongings. Label children and youth’s personal storage with pictures or words. This helps send the message that these children belong here and can help decrease clutter by letting children know where to store their items when not in use. Personal storage spaces for children also allows them to easily access their personal items (e.g., backpacks with homework, or gloves and boots for inclement weather) when needed, supporting their autonomy.
• Display: Storing and displaying artwork and portfolios sends powerful messages to children about the value of their work and helps you do your job more effectively. It communicates to children that this is a place to test out their ideas and helps you more easily track children’s developmental progress.

Aesthetics

在介绍性课程中，我们发现高质量的学龄课程向儿童和青年发送了众多积极的信息。您可以与学龄儿童沟通的最佳方式之一，您的计划是“良好的地方”是通过在整个环境中放置的小触摸，以表达课程的个性。

Home-like

Children and youth are more likely to feel that they can be themselves and have a sense of belonging when their classroom environment is more like their homes. We will address this more in the Materials lesson, but there are many ways you can add personal touches to your school-age program that create a home-like feel. For example, you can include:

• 软家具，如沙发或大型扶手椅
• Nontoxic plants
• Natural or soft lighting, through the use of window or lamps
• Throw pillows, cushions, beanbag chairs
• Decorative touches, such as area rugs or repurposed furniture
• Family photos from the children and staff
• Inexpensive frames to hang children’s artwork on the walls
• More neutral paint colors

Remember that children may spend several hours a day in your classroom or in their formal school. Your effort to create a relaxing, home-like environment is critical. It can be overwhelming to spend eight or twelve hours in spaces that are visually overwhelming, with bright lights or bright colors. A home-like environment, in addition to places for privacy and quiet areas, offers children and youth the opportunity to seek calm when they need it.

包括儿童及其家庭的图片，与个人存储和展示儿童和青少年的艺术品，是传达这个空间所属的另一种伟大方式。在显示图片或添加装饰触摸时，请记住挂起或提供儿童眼睛水平的一些物品，以加强它们是课堂空间的重视成员。

Inviting Engagement: Provocations

You can also offer items of beauty or wonder in your program that invite children and youth’s exploration and engagement. One way of doing this in your program is to think about the use of provocations. A provocation is a picture, experience, or item that provokes thought, interest, questions, or creativity (Edwards, 2002). In the Materials lesson, we will address different things to consider when selecting materials for your classroom. Provocations can help provoke children and youth to use or think about materials in new ways. When designing your classroom, it can be useful to think about how you will incorporate provocations. Your inspiration for what provocations to offer will often come from children’s current interests and their learning goals. Provocations could be:

• Pictures.Including pictures of children and youth’s interests can not only help extend their exploration of certain concepts, but it helps send the message that children’s ideas are valued in your classroom. As much as possible, use pictures of real items.
• 活动或经验。For example, go on a field trip, do an outdoor nature walk, or have a special visitor in your program. You can also take pictures during the event or experience to display later. Pictures like these, in conjunction with personal storage and children and youth’s artwork, also communicate that this space belongs to the children.
• Books.Strategically placing books relevant to children’s current interests around the room can change their play and engagement. For example, offering a book on robots next to a bin of recycled materials can invite the construction of creative robotic structures.
• Items from nature.These could include leaves or nuts you collected outside or a vase of fresh flowers.
• Simple changes in display.例如，在艺术区域添加一个斑点光线，闪耀在一碗新鲜水果上，可以帮助孩子更多关于光，阴影，阴影和静物艺术作品，特别是如果您还提供书籍和艺术工具着色和绘图。

Placement is an important key to provocations. What are you hoping children will do within each activity area in your program? What concepts are you currently exploring and how might a provocation in certain areas help extend or focus children and youth’s play? Remember, provocations are meant to be a guide, or a point of inspiration for how children can engage with certain materials or spaces, but they are not meant to be an ultimatum for what children and youth are supposed to do in each area or with the materials. For example, perhaps you set up the spot light and fruit bowl display in the art area, with appropriate books and tools to support creating a “still life” drawing with shading and shadows, but children are more interested in creating shadow drawings of their names. That is all right; not every provocation will interest every child in the way you intend. If children consistently ignore certain provocations, they may no longer be interested in that particular concept or idea.

Designing for All

When you look to design or redesign your program, you need to consider the needs and learning goals for all children. Each time a new school-age child enters your room, you should consider what changes need to be made to best support his or her engagement in the program. For a child with special needs, it is important to speak with the child’s family and your trainer, coach, or supervisor so you know the child’s particular needs and the supports that will help. As we will discuss in the Materials lesson, assuring that your classroom is welcoming to children from diverse cultural backgrounds is also critical to supporting the success of all children in your room.

In terms of environmental design, you may need to consider physical space within activity areas or pathways between activity areas, to assure that children with physical disabilities can easily move around and participate. You may need to alter the physical environment with ramps, chairs, tables, and so on that appropriately accommodate the needs and equipment for children with physical disabilities. In addition, all children, but particularly children and youth with social or behavioral needs, autism, or certain developmental disabilities, may benefit from a designated “cool down” area, where they can easily access materials that can help with self-soothing and where they can spend some minutes alone. To help children identify what they feel, the cool down space can also include pictures of children expressing different emotions, and pictures and words about different calming strategies (e.g., “Take deep breaths”). For children with autism or communication difficulties, it can also be helpful to provide multiple visual cues for how to use spaces and materials. This could mean that within the entrance to each activity area you provide a picture of children and youth safely playing in that space, or next to the clay in the art area, you offer a small series of pictures of how children could pinch or roll the clay with their hands or use special tools. See Kids Included Together (KIT) for more ideas on how to support children with special needs in your setting (https://www.kit.org/who-we-are/our-work/). While you are in your learning environment working with school-age children, you should observe the ways they use equipment and materials. If there is something that can be changed to better support the learning needs of any child, it should be brought to the attention of the program staff. Also see the learn attachment that provides some adaptive equipment and materials as well as environmental supports that may be useful for some children with special needs.

Organization

Imagine walking into your familiar neighborhood grocery store to quickly grab an ingredient for dinner only to discover that the aisles and items have been rearranged or are no longer available. What should have been a quick trip now has turned into a 30-minute scavenger hunt. You would probably feel frustrated and discouraged. Children and youth also feel frustrated when they cannot find what they need and when materials for play are unavailable. As staff members, it is your responsibility to make sure materials are easily accessible and well organized. When organizing your materials, you should think about three goals: independence, easy use, and learning.

组织独立性

First, we want children and youth to know that they can find and use materials on their own. The best way to accomplish this is to store materials on open shelves at a height accessible to all school-age children in the program. This allows children to see the materials available, make a choice, and return the item without adult support. Use open shelves to display the toys and materials in a simple and attractive way. Keep in mind, though, that too many choices can be overwhelming.

Second, we want children to learn to use signs and symbols in the environment to support their independence. The major way we help them do this is by carefully labeling objects or the places the objects belong. The best labels use written words plus pictures or parts of the object (like a puzzle piece on a puzzle box). Labeling not only helps children learn to clean up independently, it also creates a print-rich environment, which can be especially helpful for younger school-age children who are still developing their word-recognition skills. As an added benefit, you may find yourself giving fewer directions and reminders. When children and youth can engage independently with materials, you have more time for interacting and expanding learning opportunities.

Organize for Easy Use

应组织材料所以孩子们想要与他们互动。组织您的材料非常重要，所以孩子们可以在需要时找到他们所需要的东西。这也有助于孩子们知道“我可以自己做事”。有组织的材料使儿童能够尝试想法并使用新材料。组织方便使用时，请考虑将像材料一起存储在一起。像材料一样，是某些活动所必需的东西的东西。像孩子一样思考：如果我想在写作中心工作，我将需要什么或想要什么？放在铅笔，蜡笔，标记，纸质，剪刀，贴纸，模板，邮票，信件卡，单词卡，名片和写作区域中的图片词典都可以让孩子们立即涉及他们的想法。这意味着您可以在房间的许多地区有重复的材料。铅笔，纸张和剪贴板在玩具和游戏中也是有用的，以保持分数或开发新规则，因此应将一组存储在那里，以便于使用。

您选择的存储类型，包括垃圾箱，篮子和容器，可以影响儿童进入和放置材料的容易程度。例如，将书籍存储在搁架单元上，允许儿童看到完整的前封面可能会引发更大的读物兴趣，让孩子更容易选择他们感兴趣的书。存储箱应打开或容易开放或容易开放- 为您希望孩子们访问自己的材料的盖子。垃圾箱也应该由轻质材料（例如，塑料而不是金属）制成，而且儿童无法自己处理它们。清晰的塑料箱将使儿童容易看到里面的材料。箱子也应该足够大以容纳材料而不会倾向于翻倒。篮子不应该由可以戳或划伤儿童的材料制成，不应用于储存通过孔（例如，蜡笔）可以脱落的材料。可运输书籍或材料垃圾箱的轮式推车可以使材料更容易。

组织学习yabo电子游艺

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 won’t have to carry materials far from their storage spaces. Furthermore, these strategies help children and youth respect the materials and the classroom environment.

As discussed previously when considering provocations, you can organize your space to spark or build upon children and youth’s interests. Displays (e.g., pictures, posters, or wall-hangings) or books can be arranged to help children and youth explore ideas or try new things with the appropriate materials nearby. Displays should be at children’s eye level and should contain their own work, pictures relevant to their interests, or pictures meant to help spark further exploration. They should reflect the backgrounds, knowledge, and experiences of the diverse children in your program. To maintain children and youth’s engagement in play and learning, you will want to rotate materials regularly so children have the chance to use different kinds of materials.

You can organize your space so children encounter meaningful learning opportunities throughout. This means providing well-organized and well-planned literacy, math, science, and social studies materials in various activity areas. For example, offer a book about plant structure with a microscope and various natural items in the discovery and science area, or keep tape measures, clipboards, blueprints, and books about famous structures in the construction or toys and games area. The art area can include books, paintings, or other materials from a wide array of cultures.

See

Think about the principles discussed in this lesson—logistics, aesthetics, organization and attention to the needs of all children. Watch the following video and take a look at a few ways school-age staff members have considered these elements in their own programs.

Indoor Environments

Do

• Make the indoor environment feel like home.Use some of the suggestions within this lesson to make your classroom feel comfortable yet engaging.
• Give children what they need.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.
• Plan ahead.思考如何用空间来组织活动vities, storage, and display. Then identify the resources you need to make those spaces work for you. Think about how you collect and use child assessment information. You might be more likely to keep your records up-to-date if they are stored in a visible location. Make a list of all the materials you will need in each space based on the activities, storage, and displays that you are planning.
• Keep safety a priority.在设计空间时，请确保您可以监督所有区域，包括私人空间。确保您对儿童不安全的所有物品都有安全存储（例如，清洁材料）。精心设计的室内环境也将使儿童和青年从事适当的游戏，帮助防止不受欢迎的，不安全的行为（例如，跳跃，在不适当的空间中运行）。有关更多信息，请参阅安全课程。

Remember that your classroom can send messages to children. We want the classroom to help children and youth say, “I can do things on my own here” and “this is a place I can trust.” There are simple ways your classroom sends these messages. By organizing for independence, easy use, and learning, you can make your classroom a more effective space and prepare children for important learning.

• Make sure shelves and classroom materials are clearly labeled and that materials are stored where they are easy to use. You can use computer clipart, drawings, or photographs to make labels. This is a great way to involve children in your environment as many of your school-age children can write the words for your labels.
• Store the board games or puzzles close to the table or carpet at which they should be used.
• Store art materials (beads, cotton balls, feathers, ribbon) in clear containers on a shelf near the art table. Keep glue, scissors, and paper handy, as well.
• Store all your outdoor toys in a large bag or basket near the door (if you do not have outside storage for these items).
• Think about how children will access smocks for art, water, and other messy play. Store the smocks strategically, so children can get them when necessary.
• Think about the materials you currently need to support the children’s interest, current skill level, and learning goals. Remove or rotate materials to avoid clutter and support focused engagement.