Indoor/outdoor environments

At Friends Childcare Centre, we value both the indoor and outdoor environments equally. Our environments are used as a third teacher, offering children opportunities to explore, play, learn, take risks, and inspire their creativity and sense of agency. They help children make connections and develop a sense of belonging. The spaces are flexible with open-ended materials and loose parts, natural materials to engage the senses, provoke wonder, curiosity and intellectual engagement, and focus on symbolic representation, literacy, STEM, and visual arts. The centre sources many of our resources from local businesses, including fair trade. We prefer to use high-quality materials for more prolonged periods rather than single-use or disposable items. All indoor and outdoor environments have aesthetics in mind; children are encouraged to reset and make their spaces beautiful before moving to a new environment. Sustainable practices are embedded in our indoor and outdoor environments, and children are encouraged to make positive choices and decisions to reflect this.