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Celebrating Abundance in Collabaction
Guest Curator: Key Education Foundation
This a bi-weekly Bachpan Manao Badhte Jao newsletter

Enriching Classroom Environments for Early Learning
Have you ever imagined what the world looks like from the eyes of a little child?

What is a 4 year old seeking when she explores what is around her?

How does she interact with her surroundings? What does she choose to explore and how?

Young children are geared to learn from everything that is around them. They do this using all their senses to explore things - Simply put - They Play.

When a child is given access to open-ended materials, the possibilities they see are infinite and once they have found something of interest, the focus with which they engage with it is immense.

Take a moment to watch this little learner engage with these dominoes that he found in his classroom. Think of all the things he is doing and learning.

The experience of play brings together all kinds of development ranging from executive functions, motor skills, emotional regulation and so much more. When we put together a rich early learning environment for children, half the job is done and we unlock every child’s potential to play and learn. In this edition, we bring to you some ideas that have worked for us in enriching pre-primary classroom environments.


The Ideal Early Learning Environment

Whenever we speak about enabling play for young children, we are faced with multiple challenges like small space, high teacher:student ratios, high cost  and so much more. We believe that creating a quality early environment is possible despite these challenges and can actually contribute to managing some of these challenges in an under-resourced environment. When we combine research with the idea of looking at the world through the child’s eyes, we find that applying some simple strategies in the classroom can make a world of difference to the way children learn even if we have limited resources. Earlier this year, we launched the Ideal Early Learning Environment Guide and shared it with schools. Many schools have adopted changes using the guide to make the best use of their resources and space.

This guide includes strategies based on 7 big ideas

  1. Order - Ensure the classroom resources are well organized to minimize clutter and maximize use of space available

  2. Safety - Ensure that the environment is physically safe for children to minimize risk of injury during individual and peer interactions

  3. Movement - Ensure there is space for the children to move around through the day for activities, to access resources and for the teacher to access every child

  4. Access - Ensure that all teaching and learning materials, including displays and books are accessible to children through the day and are placed at the level of the child

  5. Self - Ensure children feel represented in the classroom environment

  6. Peers - Ensure that the classroom arrangement allows for children to easily play with and interact with their peers

  7. Nature - Ensure children have access to elements from nature and are able to go outdoors

We encourage you to pick one idea from each category and make small changes to your classroom and see the magic happen.

Observe how your children interact with the space and keep adding small changes to provide children with more opportunities to explore, play and learn.


Body Safety Awareness in the ‘Early Years’

Innovation for learning is a core part of our work at KEF and as we continue our journey to develop quality curricula for the early years, we are focussed on developing a curriculum to introduce Body Safety in the early years.

In the last year, we brought in experts to pilot a curriculum that focussed on introducing conversation on Body Safety in the early years classroom.

This answered many questions for us as we wondered if this is something we can introduce so early and if teachers and parents will accept it. We shared our insights in our recent Bachpan Manao, Badhte Jao Masterclass.

The pilot report provides an overview of the importance of introducing the curriculum in the early years, insights into the implementation process, and additional resources.

Motivated by the success of the pilot, we are now looking to engage with this collective to embark on a journey to co-create a curriculum on Body safety for 3-8 year old children. If you would like to engage in this process, please click here to express your interest and we will be in touch soon.

You can access more video resources for teachers and parents [English, Kannada, Hindi] on our YouTube Channels.

About Key Education Foundation

Our vision at Key Education Foundation is to ensure quality Early Childhood Education for every child in India. We ensure a holistic approach in our programs focussing on 3 things:
(1) Enriched Classrooms (2) Equipped Teachers (3) Empowered Parents

We work in partnership with governments to build their capacity to deliver quality early childhood education at scale and ensure that children are achieving age-appropriate outcomes before they enter grade 1. We currently work in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Nagaland impacting over 1,00,000 children, 3000 Teachers and over 1,00,000 Parents through our interventions.

Write to us at connect keyeducationfoundation.org if you have any queries.

The Bachpan Manao Network at Play

Interested in curating the next edition of the BMBJ newsletter? Write in to us at bachpanmanao@gmail.com.

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