GUEST POST .... constructing a construction area with children FOR children: by Andrew Blair

 Today I am sharing a guest post from Andrew Blair who works with the Futura School concern - they have several schools and preschool in the Stockholm area - several with an international focus. There are lots of photos included to inspire.

Andrew Blair

I work at Futuraskolan International Preschool Danderyd, Stockholm, Sweden. For over a year now Futuraskolan have invested in and developed the third pedagog, the learning environment. The importance of the learning environment in stimulating and influencing the learning of the preschoolers can never be underestimated. 

before

At Danderyd we have just begun the process of redeveloping all of the learning areas. 

We started with the Construction area. 

We wanted to create an area that really stood out to the children, an area that was fun, but also stimulated learning. The learning in a particular area is not always obvious and many different types of learning can take place in all areas. Our objective was to maximize the learning. 

Based on the children's interests we had noted that the children were showing a great interest  in many of the building work going on around the area where the school is situated. They would ask questions about the building work and we noted that they were recreating what they saw and understood during free play. 

Together with the children

Together with the children we set about making our very own building site within the school. At Futuraskolan we believe that it is very important to involve the children in the whole development of the pedagogical learning environments. This creates an atmosphere of community and pride in what they do. With supervision there was nothing they could not do. From painting, to selecting materials to place in the construction room. They collected recyclable materials that could be used in the construction room, and helped decide the layout. They let us know what they wanted in the area. The result is we now have a construction area that truly follows and stimulates the child's interests. The room can be added to depending on what they are doing, but most importantly the children love their new construction area and want to spend a lot of time there building and creating. 

Next stop the "pretend area" 

We hope you like and are inspired by what we did!

Andrew Blair

Team Leader and Plem (Pedagogical Learning Environment Mentor) Futuraskolan, Danderyd