As I planned the new kindergarten environment I revisited my journals from my work study in Italy last spring with a focus on flow and environment. The flow is threefold; visual, physical and scheduling. I especially wanted the environment to reflect the children's learning and interests paying close attention to creativity and the different ways that children express themselves. This required reimagining space to display the large collection of loose parts, providing lots of space for the children as well as independent access to all resources most especially loose parts. While I unpacked, sorted and arranged materials in the new kindergarten room, I chose to take my time, resisting the impulse to have everything done before the children arrived. We piled boxes in one corner and began to find homes which were a good fit for resources -- paying close attention to the space around each area so that children could move materials, spread out and work together. Our ...

The day before school began I moved into a different classroom in our school. The original kindergarten room had been re-configured back into a classroom. The construction was finished and most of the furniture and the previous teachers resources (although the cupboards are full of beautiful music instruments while she waits for storage to arrive in her new room) were moved in the morning and I went in with my crew to set up for Tuesday. We are still waiting for finishing work and storage but it is beautiful!!! While we wait for block shelving I needed to find a temporary storage solution for some of the loose parts. Voila! I found an old shelf in a storage room and repurposed some baskets. The children set to work the first day doubling the construction space we had in our last room. Wow! The loose part play is amazing. They are working side by side to create towers, museums, shops and a zoo!  ...