The environment is the third teacher.

Early childhood is defined as the period from birth to compulsory primary school age. It is the time of remarkable growth and important milestones in brain development. During this stage, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them. (Unesco 2020)

In early childhood, children are highly influenced by the environment and the people that surround them.

That being said, it is good to assess/reassess how the learning environments are set up to support children's learning. The learning environment should take the whole child in consideration - social, emotional, cultural, linguistic, physical, and cognitive side - and provide activities in all those aspects.

To do this, you can for example include activity areas that offer opportunities for both hands-on, play-based learning and developmentally appropriate instruction of academic skills. Activity areas should invite children to inquire, explore, test, discover, and engage in play and learning.

Even if the learning areas are full of inspiring, changing, and varied materials, the basic daily schedule should remain the same from day to day. The daily schedule can be supported by routines and carefully planned transitions so that the day is a smooth and well-managed ensemble.

What is Finnish Early Childhood Education?

Examples of Activity areas in the learning environment

Presented originally in Community Playthings - Supporting high quality early learning:

• Block Center

A block area that houses a full set of wooden unit blocks arranged by size and shape in low open shelving that clearly demarcates where each block should be stored;

• Math/Manipulative Center

A math/manipulative area that offers a variety of materials including puzzles, small blocks, Legos, games, tiles, geoboards, attribute blocks, and other hands-on materials that foster children’s thinking and problem-solving skills and support the development of math (counting, operations, numbers, measurement, geometry)

• Art area

An art area that offers different types of paper and drawing materials (crayons, markers, etc.), as well as paste or glue, scissors, stamps, watercolors, pastels, and tempera paints and brushes, an easel or table available for a large painting, collage and construction materials, and other assorted materials such as playdough and clay.

• Science area

A science area that includes magnifying glass(es), sand/water table, possibly animals (guinea pigs, snails, mealworms), and other natural items (eg. plants, rocks, shells, leaves...) depending on the time of the year, current topic, or interests of the children in the classroom. Within this area, children should be given time to experiment with measuring, counting, pouring, and making predictions.

How to assess the quality of the learning environments?

Provide the best early childhood education experience with Kindiedays Preschool Apps

• Children reach their full potential with playful learning based on world-leading research from Finland.
• Educators observe, document, and assess learning goals intuitively, allowing them to pay more attention to the children.
• Parents follow their children’s progress online, appreciating their preschool’s excellent care and pedagogical standards.
• Preschools adhere to government policies that promote portfolio learning and formative assessment.
• Preschools are able to market themselves as high-quality service providers.

Don't set the bar any lower. Your children deserve it!

Kindiedays offers 3 different kinds of solutions: Starter, Portfolio, and Premium. Read more about them below:

Kindiedays Starter

Start documenting learning moments and collaborating with families

Kindiedys Starter is a compact solution to support children's learning and engage families. This is a perfect way to start using Kindiedays with your center.

With Kindiedays starter you:

• Document children's learning with notes, photos, and videos.
• Use automatically-collected portfolios to develop learning.
• Engage families and show evidence of children's learning.
• Run communication between educators and families in a secure channel.
• Record attendance and utilize versatile attendance statistics.
• Spend less time on paperwork.

You can upgrade later to Kindiedays Portfolio with all your data maintained.

Kindiedays Portfolio

Use a leading-edge tool for documenting and assessing children's learning

Kindiedays Portfolio is a highly flexible digital solution for implementing your own curriculum and a high-class learning process. Inspired by Finnish best practices and based on portfolio learning and formative assessment.

With Kindiedays Portfolio you:

A successful experience in school is not only about report cards.

- Jessica Lahey

Very young children are naturally interested in learning and exploring the world around them. They are at the very beginning of their learning journey, so everything is new and exciting! If they reach out and fall, they get up again stronger and wiser - children learn by trying, testing, and making mistakes.

According to Jessica Lahey at New York Times, when children enter kindergarten some parents and teachers begin to unbalance this learning process by devaluing and replacing it by focusing on the results of learning. This means that the children's inner motivators such as natural curiosity, competence, and self-efficacy are valued less than external motivators such as stickers, points, and grades. Unfortunately, external motivators lower children’s desire to learn over a longer period of time.