Every year the teachers set up their environments to honor the developmental stages and interests of the children. With all the changes that surround us right now, this constant ritual that guides our work is keeping us focused as we design spaces that reflect the new mandates of physical distancing and cleaning routines. It will always be our mission to find ways to make connections and build relationships with each other and environments that support creative engagement with open ended materials that play a big part in this principle. Take some tips from our work to duplicate at home – those of you online with NSW can set up home areas in the same way!
Here is Teacher Cindy creating a space to explore nature outside of the mud pit. You can use: baskets of natural materials, glass gems, plastic bugs and reptiles to manipulate. Put something textural and sensory to play on – a textured rug, puff pillows – here we have a ‘grass’ carpet.
Cindy also set up a mortar and pestle to grind things from our garden: rosemary leaves, flower petals, sage and more. This sensory experience involves the beautiful sight of all those colors, the smell that wafts up to your nose and the pressure your muscles exert on grinding with these simple tools. She suggests that later you can add water or paint mediums and ‘paint’ with these colors.
What to do with all those colors? Match them with water and food dye when you mix colors with droppers. Cindy talks about the clear (water) that changes the concentrated primary (red, yellow, blue) color values and combinations. Flex those fine motor muscles for keen writing skills!
Extending on an interest? Here’s Cynthia with a short tour of setups relating to the children’s interests and developmental level in the East Wing.
Teacher Adriana offers a contemplative Sculpey Corner – where you can still keep an eye on your friends!
In the West Wing we anticipate the explorations of our new friends. Teacher Dana offers a simple setup that’s fun at home too.
Here is Flora introducing the message center and mini atelier in the West Wing. The atelier is where many materials for expression are carefully introduced. This includes allowing time for discovering the affordances and instructing how to care for them and make the space nice for the next person. Some of our first introductions are paint, wire, and line making tools.
All of these centers are easy to replicate at home for further exploration. I’ll be sharing more soon so stay tuned – and if you need any information on materials to purchase, give me a call or email! – Kris