Williams-Ridge - welcoming environment

We want to welcome children and families into the classroom, we also want teachers to be able to do things like read a story comfortably to a child or two. And there’s something about having soft surfaces that really allows you to relax a little bit more, you can read a longer story and children will have that more home-like feeling and it does help build relationships when you can sit down on something where you and a child can sit comfortably and share in a story. We do use natural colours, lots of greens and wood tones, and things that aren’t too bright. We don’t want the environment to be over stimulating, we want it to feel calm and welcoming, but also have some places where things pop like: flowers, that have a little bit of purple on them, or things that have different textures, we want children to be able to feel those things in the classroom as well as outside.

One of the great things about being outside is that children have the ability to touch different textures and smell different. They can use their whole bodies to engage, and we try and reproduce that as much as we can in the classroom with materials that also feel very natural and don’t distract children from what we would like them to experience for the day.

The caves are kinds of a side bonus of having observation booths in the classroom, but they offer children a place to be, with, either alone, or just in a cozy space where they can really control all of the sounds and all of the things that they’re experiencing. Some children like to use it as a place to just look at a book, but other children also use it as a place to go with a friend to build something special, or a teacher and a child might sit in there and, you know, look at a puzzle, or do something unique. It’s nice to have those small places in the classroom, kind of like for an adult where you have something like a hammock or something like a study, where you have a small room that you can focus in on the material and you can kind of, control the variables in the space. So, the caves are a nice bonus, without the caves, the teachers create things underneath lofts, and there are fun places outside, especially once the greenery; there are some willow huts where children can go inside and you know, one, two, maybe three children can fit inside and create a cozy place.