The learning environment for children must be carefully considered and evaluated by the educator. Children will be learning in small groups, as a large group, in pairs, and by themselves. The learning environment must be flexible enough to accommodate these varying configurations and the play that accompanies them.
Additionally, educators also need to consider each child’s age and level of development, native culture and ethnicity, as well as varying abilities. Educators must understand how to best set up a classroom environment to help foster learning and development. At the same time, they must think about ways to avoid conflicts that may arise among the children due to the environment.
Finally, educators also need to consider routines, transitions, and schedules and how these impact the children. In what ways can we use routines, transitions, and schedules to foster positive social interactions among our children? What kinds of effects will environmental changes have on challenging behaviors? How do young children view diversity? In order to avoid conflicts among the children and to foster learning, growth and development, an early childhood educator must carefully consider ways that play and the environment can promote positive social interactions and ways to foster diversity.
Directions
Read the scenario below. Then, write a 2-3 page reflection answering the questions regarding the environment, routines, transitions, and schedules to foster growth and positive social interactions.
Routines: Why is it important to have routines within a learning environment? What kinds of routines could you implement to this classroom to help bring order to it? What kinds of changes would you expect to see in the classroom once routines are in place? Why?
Transitions: Why is it important for children to transition from one activity to the next? Will you add transitions to this learning environment? What will your transitions look like? What are your expectations after implementing these transitions? Why?
Schedules: Why is important for early childhood educators to utilize schedules within their classroom? What might you include on the schedule and why? How will you make children aware of the schedule? How will the children read the schedule?
Environment: What kinds of environmental changes would help reduce some of the more challenging behaviors? What might you change or add? How will changing the environment help to reduce challenging behaviors?
Inclusion and Diversity: What changes would you make to this classroom concerning diversity? What might you change or add? Why? What impact might this have upon the children’s play? Give examples.
Conclusion: Explain how managing items 1-5 above can help to foster growth and positive social interactions.
Scenario:
You walk into a classroom of 3–4-year-olds. There are 16 children in the class with one teacher and one teacher’s assistant. There are eight girls and eight boys. Two of the girls identify as Hispanic and one is learning English. Three girls identify as African-American and three are Caucasian. One of the African-American girls has a hearing impairment. Two of the boys identify as African-American and one of them is also on the autism spectrum. Two boys are of Indian descent; one is fluent in English while the other is learning English. There are two children who identify as Hispanic, one who is learning English. There are two Caucasian boys in this classroom, one who has anger-management control issues.
There is a long open area where three of the children are running back and forth and screaming. One of them trips and falls and begins to cry. You notice that there are no labels in the room and no depictions of any children of color anywhere in the classroom.
In the dramatic play area, you see four baby dolls and they are all Caucasian. No one is playing with them. All the play food is also American and while real containers are used, they are all in English.
In the blocks area, one boy is building quietly by himself. Two of the other boys are arguing about what each other is building. One of the boys smashes the other boy’s creation, causing him to cry loudly.
Three children are playing with playdough and making food. One of the children who identifies as Hispanic tells the others that he is making a tortilla. The other two children look confused. They tell him he is making a pancake. An argument erupts over the subject.
There seems to be a lack of cohesion among the children and chaos reigns in the classroom. You don’t see any schedules for the children to follow, so the children are roaming around the room, taking toys from one center to another and from each other. You notice that none of the children look happy and the two teachers are talking to one another.
Make sure to Include:
APA citations to all sources used for this assignment, including a title page and reference page in APA format. Include a minimum of two references or resources from the Rasmussen library or course materials.
All work should be formatted professionally and use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
