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Room Planning For Under 2's


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Can anyone help??

 

We have a large baby room 0-2years.....24 of the little lovelies to be exact :blink:

 

Our Learning Journey format is generic across the setting but our room planning is not.....which is why i need some of your wisdom.

We do continuous provision enhancements and activity planners to support learning journeys as well as a shared interest project book in the over 2's rooms, but what should room planning look like in the under 2's??

 

At the minute we have an enhancement planner for the areas in the room, such as exploratory, heuristic, constuction etc. which relates to childrens interest, learning journey and L&D needs and then a key group observation sheet where the key person writes obs of there children, next steps in L&D then activities to support the next steps....does this sound ok??

The enhancement planner also has space for look, listen & note moments.

Thanks

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I read a fab article about this in the Nursery World by Penny Tassoni because it made me think of my 'developmentally' two year olds [sEN].

 

In my experience, young two-year-olds play very differently from their older counterparts. They seem to explore sensations, need plenty of gross motor activity and have clear play preferences. These do not neatly fit into the classic continuous provision that most nurseries and pre-schools use. While three-year-olds are happily pretending to cook in the role-play kitchen, the young two-year-old is far more likely to be busy banging open and shut the cooker door and exploring the concept of 'open and shut'. Or there is the scenario where two-year-olds remove the plastic bowl belonging to the pretend sink and proceed to drop assorted items into the newly created hole.

There are many ways of moving forward with this age group. You could consider researching play schemas, but in the interim I would suggest that you and your team have a good look at the actual actions of these two-year-olds and create a list of verbs. From my own observations of two-year-olds, I often see the following: dropping, mixing, throwing, climbing, opening and shutting, moving objects and tipping.

From working out what they are actually 'doing', you can then set up areas, activities and put out resources that safely allow them to follow these activities. In some ways, this becomes a parallel continuous provision with the two-year-olds being able to 'legally' drop wooden blocks into a bucket of water or fill up a large shopping bag with bits of jigsaw puzzle or mix sand and water together with a stick [Nursery World, June 2012]

 

I think you are on the right track with exploratory, heuristic etc. Your top priority would be to provide for individual schemas and their emotional wellbeing e.g. lots of cosy spaces. One of the things I do now is to get down on the floor and look at what the environment looks like from that perspective. Can they make choices and access resources easily?

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Aunt Sally thats fab thanks.......we've been developing our under 2's room for a while now focusing on specific areas and have great cosy spaces, heuristic, book areas and its beginning to all come together really nicely. However we have been looking at the ceiling and walls and it is just boring cream paint with absolutely nothing of interest above say 4 foot on either the walls or the ceiling......the staff suggested to the manger that they use voile, mirrors, mobiles made by the children, etc. on the ceiling and walls to bring the level down and make it interest for the babies and toddlers when they are lying on the floor....she said don't be ridiculous everything needs to be put no higher then a toddlers head or the children can't see it.....is it me or is this the silliest thing you've ever heard??? I've visited outstanding settings and their baby rooms have lovely wall and ceinling displays.....should i dig my heels in and insist it needs to be improved??

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  • 1 month later...

I like the idea of a large whiteboard in the room to note any PLODs, achievements etc. and staff transfer ring the notes into learning journey and leave ideas still to be actioned on the whiteboard for the next week and for all the team to see.... I'm gonna put this to the team and see what they think :)

Edited by Guest
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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Aunt Sally thats fab thanks.......we've been developing our under 2's room for a while now focusing on specific areas and have great cosy spaces, heuristic, book areas and its beginning to all come together really nicely. However we have been looking at the ceiling and walls and it is just boring cream paint with absolutely nothing of interest above say 4 foot on either the walls or the ceiling......the staff suggested to the manger that they use voile, mirrors, mobiles made by the children, etc. on the ceiling and walls to bring the level down and make it interest for the babies and toddlers when they are lying on the floor....she said don't be ridiculous everything needs to be put no higher then a toddlers head or the children can't see it.....is it me or is this the silliest thing you've ever heard??? I've visited outstanding settings and their baby rooms have lovely wall and ceinling displays.....should i dig my heels in and insist it needs to be improved??

So toddlers don't notice the moon and birds do they not, what on earth are they talking about :-0

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