This is something that I am constantly needing to remind myself. When the children arrive in the morning, often the toys and materials a neatly tucked away in their spots. BUT, I have noticed over the last few months the benefits of setting up the environment in a way that is inviting to the children. This often means that things look as though play has already begun. By setting up scenes, like the one below we are welcoming children to an area that is inviting and perhaps initiating creativity. I said it before that even children can experience a 'creativity block' and by setting up the environment in such a way, it can lead to some interesting play, and often takes it in a direction that we may not have anticipated! 
What do you think this set up turned into?
(if you guessed an animal train ride, you guessed right!... see those glass beads lined up, that's the train, and the animals are at the stations.)
Over the weekend my friends had brought their girls by, and they rearranged our glass jars. Initially the jars were just placed in random order, but to an eight and nine year old brain, they needed to be arranged in the colour spectrum. This was noticed this morning by the children. The comment was, 'look a rainbow!'
These jars are wonderful additions to our environment... again they are part of the 'other teacher'. The children look through them when they look out the window... the neat thing is that they are in almost a prism shape, so everything (in addition to being different colours) is distorted. They also make some neat colour designs on our walls if the sun hits them just right.
Speaking of reflections and light. A few months back I came across this blog http://casamarias.blogspot.com/ and spotted her use of those old CD's. Since I had a large stack of them, I became inspired, so this is our background to our light table. I just need to hunt down a few more, but that shouldn't be too hard!
These wonderful things are my new favourite 'things'. They are little LED tealight candles. What a neat ambiance they create. We've used them in a variety of ways... block corner, housekeeping, in our rocketship, in our cozy book corner, and today we used them to cast a 'romantic' atmosphere at snack time... why not, it's almost Valentine's Day!
A little un-glamorous with the cutlery holder and garbage basket in the middle of the table. But we made an attempt to jazz it up by placing it on our grass mat, which for convenience sake, is on top of a 'lazy susan'. We're still working on jazzing it up more, but that's what we get for now!
The way we set up our environments is so important, whether at home or in a group centre setting. It shows to the children that we care about them and we value them enough to let them touch and play with the items in the centre. It is important to remember not only is it set up in a 'beautiful way' but also in a practical way. We are allowing the children to explore and create and see the materials provided for them. We are not hiding the items from their sight, or putting things too high, but showing them what is there, and inviting them to enjoy their environment!
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