An Updated Peek In Our Playroom

Home decorating and interior design are admittedly not strengths of mine. I've never really had an eye for these types of aesthetics and to this day, I think a centerpiece is something casually placed off-center on the table to cover up a stain on the tablecloth. I've often been told (maybe in a complimentary manner?) that my home resembles a preschool classroom and I guess after spending the better part of the last decade inside of one, that does feel like home to me! 

Even in setting up my classrooms over the year, aesthetics were often not my personal strength. I can look inside classrooms and appreciate what others do and even mimic it in my own, but my main purpose in set-up has always been function and ease of access. Are materials accessible to children to successfully use independently? Can they reach items they need and see things at their level that are visually stimulating and helpful to the learning process? Can I (the slightly taller adult) easily access materials I need very quickly (like towels and writing/art supplies)? Does the room flow in a way that makes sense to spend our day and move through activities? Does the space represent who lives there? In other words, if it is a room devoted to children, is their life, world and work represented or does it look like an office cubicle or dental exam room?

There are a few core tools that are the foundation of what I have learned over the years in terms of functional set up of a play and learning area both in the classroom. 

• Less is more. When EVERYTHING is out and available, NOTHING gets used. When I have too many toys on the shelf or in an area, my son starts to play with things that are not toys. The same goes for the students I have taught. On the one hand, we think that everything is visible and accessible and this gives ample opportunity to select and use things independently and functionally. What usually ends up happening is focus on one or two things or dumping out of a lot of things. When just a few items are selectively and carefully placed at child level, it draws in the focus and attention that lead to successful independent play and exploration.

• Toy/material Rotation is an Amazing Reset Button! Even favorite books and toys get stale after a while. You can usually tell when this happens because they lie abandoned in a corner or children will start to use a material in a less functional way (like dumping our ALL of the Legos). When you see boredom strike in a room FULL of things to do, it's time to change it up. I tend not to do massive playroom overhauls because I find it personally disorienting when a room totally changes on me and I feel that children do as well. Some children are more sensitive to changes (small or large) than others. That said, I think small, incremental changes are a useful tool for mitigating rigidity. I personally have some rigidity quirks about change that could use tweaking in this way and I see also how my son now gets very used to something being kept one way in one place and needs support to adapt. Simple and incremental toy and book rotations in our main play and living area have really supported this area of growth for him (and, um, for me). Sometimes that means taking one item out of the scene and swapping it for another. Other times it can mean setting up the same material in a new way or in a new space. (*Some examples will follow in the photos below.)

• Clean As You Go. This was a little adage my mother taught me as a girl when she was giving me lessons in the kitchen on baking and it's one I struggle to continue learning myself and teaching to my students and my son. My own little guy is remarkable self-motivated to clean up. He may have inherited certain qualities from his hater-of-messes-and-clutter mom. Nonetheless, I do try to initiate cleaning up one item if he is done using it before moving on to a new activity. I am not rigid in this are if something is a work and progress and will be returned to at a later time. One thing that can be very challenging for children in home environments as well as classroom ones is parting with a project they have worked very hard on before they are done. This is particularly applicable to block buildings and Lego structures. Sometimes it is possible to allow a structure to stand, out of the way, and be returned to later for play. Other times when it is not, I utilize cameras and journaling as a way to record what has been accomplished and that is often just the tactic needed to encourage timely transition from the activity and involvement in cleaning up. In the home environment it is inevitable that the house will look lived in and it should! I minimize my own clean-ups to once or twice a day, either at nap and bedtime or just at bedtime.

• Who lives here anyway?! My classrooms and my home proudly represent their inhabitants. In my classroom that meant that while it was a room for the children, my world was also represented. Children's toys and books lined the shelves within their reach. Artwork and photos were displayed within their view. Photos of my family and objects that brought me joy (as well as materials I needed access to) lined shelves within my reach. Our living room at home is much the same. We live in a relatively small space. We have tall bookshelves overflowing with our seforim (Jewish texts), cookbooks, literature, and resources pertinent to both my husband's and my own career and personal interests. Shelves on the bottom now mostly contain toys and materials relevant to our toddler's interests. We have framed artwork, paintings and photos of famous rebbes and meaningful depictions of Jewish life and prayer. We also have paper airplanes, mitzvah notes and arts and crafts projects hanging alongside. We have hooks where we hang our hats, coats, bags and accessories. Lower down on the wall, we have hooks where my son hangs his coats and bags that he can independently access. It's not perfect, it's always evolving and my husband definitely does not have a man cave here. In fact, I don't think any "adult space" actually exists in our home right now, but we like it that way. Every room in our home is part and parcel to creating and recreating our family structure in every moment of every day.

• Use what you have! There are so many amazing ideas out there on Pinterest, blogs, books, Facebook groups and I'm always gleaning great ideas from fellow parents and educators. I'd have a shopping list 10 feet long each week if I bought every new material required for these activities (and a debt list just as long to accompany it). I tweak projects and activities and use what we have in alternate ways. I also shop with this intent in mind. If I am purchasing a toy or supply, I want it to have either many functions of use down the line or a decent shelf life to be able to use it more than once.

• Revisit and reassess: if/when it stops working, try something different. In spite of best intentions, clutter does build up. When things stop being functional or easily accessible, I make changes. I have an inherited quality of holding on to things I think might be useful for using or teaching with later on down the line. I can part with old clothes and other material things but just try to pry that empty toilet paper tube or brown paper bag out of my hand, I dare you! Sometimes it gets to be too much though. I have a rule when that happens that if I don't have a purpose for it in mind, it goes out the door. I aim to purchase and/or save only items that will have many lives and uses in their time. Nonetheless, you can't take it all with you and sometimes you need to do a massive purge to donate, throw away or otherwise part with things that don't have a purpose anymore. The same goes for all of those artwork creations. We make a point to display things as my son creates them. Certain things I do save in my files for future use (we right now have Thanksgiving decorations up that we made together last year) or reference. Other things I capture in photograph for the memory and part with after they have been given adequate air and wall time. 

And with that in mind, here's a little updated peek into our playroom: 

I call this our Nature Observation Station. I keep it stocked throughout the year with finds from nature walks or other relevant seasonal items. I provide and swap out tools to go along with it such as magnifying glasses, containers, tweezers, etc. The bin on the right is a small sensory bin of dried corn kernels with two dishes and a spoon for transferring (one of my son's favorite activities)!

One way I display artwork and seasonal decorations. I've used and created several different garlands (this is actually a couple of Autumn leaf garlands from our Dollar Tree that I bought for our play sukkah). Clothes pins or paperclips can be used to hang and display artwork without damaging artwork or the wall with tacks/tape. We also display certain items directly on walls as well as with magnets on our refrigerator and front door. This is visually at adult level and our living room has limited wall space in child view. We do display artwork at child level in my son's bedroom.

This shelf is usually devoted to building toys and manipulatives. This week it has a theme related focus: building a teivah (ark) for the story of Noach (Noah).

When we explore new themes in our homeschooling, I incorporate theme related toys or combinations of toys. Here is a little Noah's Ark activity I set up for learning about that parsha this coming week.

I swap out seasonal and theme related books as we learn about different topics. If my son has certain favorites, I aim to leave at least a couple on the shelf even if we complete a theme. I often set out a small basket as well of theme related materials or toys that can accompany a book or be used for story telling.

In a small space, all space is used! We have a deep freezer in our living room because many of the kosher foods we buy are not locally accessible and we need to order and purchase in bulk. It would probably be an eyesore to many, but we love its magnetic surface and child height level for play and learning. It's a great place to display and use letter magnets, shape magnets, or, in this case, seasonal magnets. I've heard you can use refrigerator surfaces as well for dry erase markers but I'm still a little afraid to encourage drawing on some walls/surfaces without simultaneously encouraging it on other ones!

This is our revamped dramatic play area. We recently parted with a falling apart wooden kitchen set we inherited on its initial course to the dumpster from a neighbor. We squeezed another good year plus of life out of it before hauling it the rest of the way. My son LOVES playing "kitchen" but for some reason, hardly ever used the majority of his own kitchen toys that were stored in the old kitchen's large cabinets. This one, purchased secondhand at a thrift store, has much smaller cabinets so I emptied a set of plastic drawers holding a bunch of junk I needed to throw away from my own closet and used it for his play food, dishes and household items. Like magic, he's suddenly playing with and accessing all of this toys and he spends hours here over the course of each day!

We love these block style shelving units here. They hold a minimal amount of toys/materials and that limited space helps me to maintain my "less is more" philosophy. The top row is used for art and sensory materials my son can independently access (I drape a large scarf over the top shelf during Shabbos or times I don't want him to access these materials). We use the bottom rows for other toys and materials and these are items I swap out or move every couple of weeks or so as he gets bored or stops playing with them.

As we learn about Parshas Noach, the story of Noah and the Ark, I am also teaching about colors and the rainbow. These toys and materials are all things we had already at home--some were even out on shelves in our playroom or in my son's room. Moving them to this area and displaying them in a new way has infused them with new life. Suddenly he's going back and forth all day to that shelf and taking out the puzzles or materials to use with me or independently. Toy rotations are useful to a point but sometimes display method is everything!

Thanks for visiting and happy playing!