3 Ways to Get the Look of Your Child’s Preschool at Home

Are you inspired with how inviting and creative your child’s daycare or preschool is? From the elaborate dramatic play area to the lovely line of blocks on the bright and colorful mats. Early childhood centers are inspiring and can make many parents feel like they need to give their child’s playroom a complete makeover if they want to peak their child’s creativity and interest at home. But this isn’t so!

Here are three ways to get the look of your child’s daycare or preschool (without going to the store)!

1. Get Organized

Before tossing out all your child’s toys and running to the nearest store for a curated playset, take a moment and walk around the room. Divide the room into smaller parts (four is a good number to start with) and think of them as stations.

2. Plan for Development

Physical, language, cognitive and language development are essential parts of early childhood, and these critical areas of development can provide inspiration for your child’s playroom. Within the stations, plan for what area of development that station can target. Perhaps one station has blocks for gross motor play. Another station may have rhyming and picture cards which support language development. Maybe another station will have nature objects (e.g., house plants, nature sequencing cards or a magnifying glass) to inspire scientific thinking. When planning items at stations based on development, you can ensure you have a balanced mix. 

3. Have an eye of a child

Have you ever noticed that every time you go to your child’s daycare or preschool, you find yourself bending down? This is because their teacher has organized the room for the “child’s eye.” From bookcases that keep the book’s front cover forward facing to capture their attention and imagination to wall art and posters that the perfect height for children and toddlers to reach and point! Keep this in mind when organizing the room.

BONUS:

4. Change it up!

Rotate the different toys and learning aids that are in your child’s playroom periodically to keep things fresh. Now, this does not mean you have to buy brand-new toys to switch out the old ones but instead keep some toys and learning aids away and swap them out occasionally. This is a classic teacher “trick, and you will be shocked at how excited your child will be to see a toy they have not seen in a while.