Introduction

There are many factors that govern what toys and materials children want to play with and how they play with them. Children will often be fascinated with novel materials or ones they are not used to. For example, a child may have many top-of-the-line toys in their room, but be more interested in the pots and pans in the kitchen. On the other hand, a long lost toy that has been found can become the most special object.

When we observe children playing with toys and materials we form predictions about what this may look like, whether it’s intentional or not. Oftentimes caregivers think that if children have enough toys, they will be engaged for hours. But what happens when this proves false? Caregivers may think they don’t have enough toys or that they have the wrong toys. On the flip side, caregivers may be shocked when all their child wants to play with is the box their toy came in.

It can be unpredictable to know what types of toys or materials children will gravitate towards, but if we focus a bit more on the environment around them, we can gather more insight around this topic. A children’s environment takes on an important role that many of us overlook. In the educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia, the environment is considered a “third teacher” in a classroom, because it is an active agent in the way it impacts children’s curiosity, discovery, and learning.

In college I always admired the way my mentor set up her infant-toddler classroom. She would create little “lands” all over; a cozy reading area with lots of soft pillows and quite nooks, a building area with interesting stones, gems, and twigs that complimented the blocks, a sand mountain outside with animals placed in it to look like they were climbing to the top. At one point I asked her why it was so important to have everything so neat, organized and “set-up.” My thought was, they were just children after all, they won’t care or notice if toys are just put on shelves without thought. Toys are toys, the children will be so happy to have them, right? My mentor told me to imagine being a child in the space and to ask myself, would I want to play here? Would it look intriguing? Would I be interested? Would it bring me joy? I started to do this, to practice looking through the lens of a child and I was amazed how much this changed my way of thinking about the environment. My child lens said, yes of course I want all the books arranged on the shelf, I don’t want to read them when they are all over the floor. I don’t want to play with random toys that are dumped together in one bin. What’s there to do in the sandbox?

As time when on, I reflected more about how I felt walking into a room and I took notice in environments that made me feel welcomed, free, and others that felt crowded and loud. It made sense to me how important the environment is to us, and how a child’s first impressions of a space are based on whether they feel comfortable and safe enough to explore.