Children benefit significantly from high quality child care, according to recent research. Boys and girls in high quality child-care environments:

• develop more advanced language skills.
• display more advanced cognitive development.
• experience more success in school.
• demonstrate more positive social skills, such as more sociability, less emotionality, less shyness, and less dependence.

Often people do not realize the planning and organizing that goes into child care makes a significant difference to a child's development

A positive environment should have expressive materials like paint, drawing materials, and dough or clay. The space should include open-ended materials that can be used in many different ways so children can pretend, invent and create. Sensory experiences are also very nurturing and soothing for children's emotions. Water play, sand play, play dough- they all allow release of frustration. Construction materials, like building blocks, are also important and help develop a child’s fine and gross motor skills.

The environment needs to be based on the whole child: socially, emotionally, cognitively, and physically. This approach looks at the environment as a whole through the child’s eye.

Things we can ask ourselves as practitioners are:
“Are there materials so that the child can express his feelings? Are the materials challenging enough? Are there opportunities for fine and gross motor development?”

Here are some useful ideas for us to consider:

• Organization – Can the child “read” the environment to make sense of it? Is the space clear or chaotic? Labels or pictures help the child keep the environment orderly, which fosters independence in the child.
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• Aesthetics – Is there colour, texture, soft materials? Not just primary colors. Having a wide range of colors and materials is more likely to appeal to children and will enable them to gain more intelligence about their world.
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• Adaptability – Can the space or materials move and change to reflect the child’s current development, interests?

Creating a positive environment also means giving a child individual attention and respect by acknowledging the child. Acknowledgement is more than simply complimenting the child. An adult can compliment a child by saying, “Your picture in great.” Acknowledgement, however, is when an adult takes notice of what a child has done, and says, “Look, you can do that now!”

When creating a positive environment for the child we need to make sure we have a safe and welcoming environment. Make sure the setting is safe and secure to protect the well being of the children. We need to keep a clean environment not only for health reasons, but also because staying clutter-free will help both adult and child from feeling overwhelmed.

Playing classical music can create a peaceful environment for both practitioner and the children.

High quality child care environments offer important early learning opportunities to our young children. Research shows that the first six years of life are the most critical in terms of a child’s development. It is during these years that children are building the foundation for success through their lives. Licensed child care and early learning programs offer a range of activities and curricula to support children’s growth in all aspects of their development.

The most profound contributors to a child’s future success are their social skill development, knowing how to resolve conflict, and their problem solving abilities. Qualified Early years practitioners support families as the primary educators to their children. They also support children directly so that they can best learn these skills in a group setting. Children who participate in high quality licensed child care programs are more likely to succeed in school and go on to higher education; to score higher on IQ tests; to have lower likelihood of dropping out of school; and they are more likely to earn more money and have more savings later in life.


By keeping up with currently valid research into providing a positive childcare environment, we as practitioners can get more of an understanding of the benefits of that environment for the children, it will help to contribute to our planning, and help the children to develop into positive, happy and healthy adults.