Toddler room Learning environment

[Guest]

Hello,

 

I was wondering if anyone had any advice or ideas for toddler rooms, we are currently re doing our toddler room (18months - 2 years) and would love some input from anyone with some experience with this age group. The room currently has a home corner, a creative table a ball pitt a baby gym, a quiet area/book corner and a couple of low level sensory trays which are rarely used.

 

I realize that at this age, a lot of the children are displaying/exploring play schemas, so things are moved all over the room and so using this as inspiration I was hoping to create a more sensory based room. do you think that a home corner as such is really necessary, I don't see the children at this age engaging in any kind of role play! they seem to simply enjoy moving all the toy food around in the different bags and containers. What kinds of areas do you have in your toddler rooms, what works well/less well.

 

All help/advice/ideas would be most welcome thank you

[AnonyMouse_5970]

Our toddler room is 2 - 3 years but for under two's I probably wouldn't have a home corner as such. Our under two's room does have a little kitchen but not a full home corner.

As you say, they love transporting so lots of bags, baskets and boxes. Things to transport things in - we have a lovely wooden trolley from Community Playthings (pricey but worth it, as always with CP!).

Lots of treasure baskets to explore - different themed ones that can be changed over.

A sand and/or water tray (we don't have both out at the same time for little ones) that also doubles up as a sensory tray sometimes holding shredded paper, bark, wood, gloop etc.

A hidey hole /den is nice - it doesn't need to be big at all.

We also have a wooden climbing frame with a slide. Our under two's room isn't huge so this isn't out all the time. It folds up and we store it in the sleep room when not in use.

Overall, I think the room needs to be adaptable. This age group develops and changes so quickly that we need to make changes regularly. For example at the moment we have lots of cruisers and climbers so the climbing frame is out. A while ago we did a lot with treasure baskets and heurisitic play. So much depends on the age/stage of the children and what they currently enjoy.

[Guest]

Our toddler room is 2 - 3 years but for under two's I probably wouldn't have a home corner as such. Our under two's room does have a little kitchen but not a full home corner.

As you say, they love transporting so lots of bags, baskets and boxes. Things to transport things in - we have a lovely wooden trolley from Community Playthings (pricey but worth it, as always with CP!).

Lots of treasure baskets to explore - different themed ones that can be changed over.

A sand and/or water tray (we don't have both out at the same time for little ones) that also doubles up as a sensory tray sometimes holding shredded paper, bark, wood, gloop etc.

A hidey hole /den is nice - it doesn't need to be big at all.

We also have a wooden climbing frame with a slide. Our under two's room isn't huge so this isn't out all the time. It folds up and we store it in the sleep room when not in use.

Overall, I think the room needs to be adaptable. This age group develops and changes so quickly that we need to make changes regularly. For example at the moment we have lots of cruisers and climbers so the climbing frame is out. A while ago we did a lot with treasure baskets and heurisitic play. So much depends on the age/stage of the children and what they currently enjoy.

 

Thanks for some great ideas, love the ideas of the tent/den and the treasure baskets, we have these in the baby room but i think they would be great for toddlers as well. I also thought of getting some speakers in the room as we have several who love to dance, that way we could be playing lots of different types of music to the children.

[AnonyMouse_79]

Hi camilla, Im going to move this to the preschool forum area.