FULL ENVIRONMENT SET-UP PLANNING SHEET

Student Name: Taylor Roncali Course Code: ECS 2040

Age Group: Infants (10-18 months) Date: January 30th -

February 3rd, 2017
When planning a full room set-up, you should incorporate a minimum of four (4) centers and/or
Learning Experiences. In completing the write up of your full room set-up, you must make a list of
the areas with a general description of each. You must also plan and implement one (1) Learning
Experience in addition to the four (4) centers.
The purpose of the centers and/or Learning Experiences may derive from:
(a) Observations of children
(b) Extension of a previous experience
(a) Providing a new experience.

Objective:
Children will:
Further develop the use of their senses as they engage in different sensory based activities.
The infants will be provided with a number of activities that challenge them to use their
different senses when participating and exploring. In preferred small groups of 4-5, the infants
will be able to freely explore and play with the different activity. They will be encouraged to
use different sense, but not demanded to change the way or type of play they are choosing to
partake in. If more than 4-5 infants join in, there will be more than enough materials for the
rest of the class to participate.
Centre or Learning Experience #1: Feathers, Pompoms and Bags
Purpose:
This activity will have more of a focus on the infants fine motor skills, more specifically their ability to
grasp the feathers or pompoms in their hands, as well as put the feathers into the paper bags and take
them out (ELECT, 2007, p. 26). I am starting with this activity because I have observed that the infants
really enjoy holding objects of different textures in their hands as well as putting objects inside of other
objects (i.e. blocks in a bucket).

Materials:
Buckets
Coloured Feathers
Coloured Pompoms
Paper Bags
Centre or Learning Experience #2: Mess-Free Paint
Purpose:
Children will: Further get to explore their sense of touch with paint through a mess-free
environment. This will also introduce the concept of making colours to the infants (i.e. mix red
and blue, you get purple).

Materials:
Brown Paper
Paint (Red, Blue, and Yellow)
Clear Plastic Garbage Bag
Tape

Centre or Learning Experience #3: Gluten-Free Edible Play Dough

Purpose:
Through observation it has become clear to me that at such a young age your sense of touch
as well as taste are huge. Many of the infants love to explore new objects but first touching
than placing it in their mouths. For this activity, it will give the children the freedom to explore
not only by touch, but also taste if they please. Different colours of play dough is also
provided to give them a sense of option.

Materials:
Baby Rice Cereal
Vegetable Oil
Cornstarch (or Gluten-Free Cornflour)
Unsweetened Applesauce
Food Colouring

Centre or Learning Experience #4: Sensory Baggies

Purpose:
This activity allows children to have a hands-on experience with a different texture, as well as
allowing the children to have a little fun and mix colours.

Materials:
Cornstarch
Sugar
Water
(Boil the ingredients above and let cool)
Bags
Food Colouring
Centre or Learning Experience #5: Water Table, Toys and Sponges
Purpose:
Children will: Explore water by splashing and using the different toys provided. They can
observe which toys sink, float back to the surface and also which ones fill with water. They
can further explore their fine motor skills and the different areas of cause and effect when the
squeeze they sponges allowing the water to escape. The animal shaped water toys will also
allow them to become more familiar with different animals.

Materials:
Buckets
Water
Animal Shaped Sponges
Animal Shaped Floats
Set-Up:
Role of the Educator:

Teaching Strategy #1: Sensory Engagement

I will use the sensory engagement teaching strategy to give the infants a change to freely use
their senses with non-harmful objects. By using this teaching strategy, I will be motivating the
infants to explore the centers with all their senses, as well as engage in different types of
play, such as parallel and individual. At such a young age, I believe it is crucial to learn
through your different senses and be able to have that firsthand experiences allowing them to
fully understand why certain things feel certain ways or taste, smell and sound.

Teaching Strategy #2: Invitations

I will use the invitation teaching strategy to encourage all the infants to participate in the
different activities I have planned for them and allow them to explore. By using this teaching
strategy, I will be motivating the infants to participate and engage with others by using their
different senses. By saying inviting things such as, Come and see what we are doing will
excite the infants to want to come and join in and learn about the new activity. Making sure
there is enough room and materials for everyone is important. Even if it is set out to be a
small group activity, I will always have enough materials for the whole class as infants are
spontaneous and you never know when they will be interested in something.

Supportive Strategies:
I will acknowledge the different senses the infants are using as well as the different ways they
are exploring the different activities and encourage them to use different senses and
observation methods by using encouraging statements such as:
What does this object taste/smell/sound/feel/taste like?
Show me which object is soft and which one is hard.
Can you show me what else in the classroom is the colour blue?
Overall Full Environment Set-Up Evaluation:

What worked during this learning experience? Why?

During this full environment set-up the infants were provided with many opportunities that let
them freely explore using any of their senses. The purpose for each activity was met throughout
the week when the infants participated in the experiences and explored their senses.
In the center, the infants were very intrigued by the bright colours of the feathers and pompoms,
as well as the texture of everything. With the freedom to explore as they please, the infants would
throw the feathers, pompoms and even the bags. They enjoyed being able to place the objects in
the bag and bumping them out. The noise of the bag crumpling was also fascinating to them.
Although some placed the object in their mouths, the majority of the group understood the
concept of using their fine motor skills.
Centre two, the infants were a bit confused by, but overall seemed to enjoy it. They did not
understand the concept of mess-free as every time they touched the plastic where paint was,
they would than examine their hands to see the paint. When they got the hang of rubbing their
hands over the plastic, they seemed to enjoy watching the colours disappear and watch as new
colours appeared.
Centre three seemed to be one of the favourite of the infants due to the fact that this was the one
experience they were allowed to put in their mouths and eat! From observation, it was become
clear that the infants enjoy exploring with their sense of touch and taste the most. This experience
gave them the ability to freely use their sense of taste without being redirected or told Out of
your mouth.
Centers four and five were more of a hands on activity that encouraged the infants to use their
sense of touch. All of these activities were heavily directed towards them improving their fine
motor skills as well as freely exploring their senses.
My teaching strategies were very successful as I was able to encourage the infants to participate
in the activity and engage with their friends. Through the week, I was able to observe each infant
using all five of their senses which was the overall goal.
My objective was met when I was able to observe the infants using all their different sense as well
as participating in different types of play. My supportive strategies were a helpful backup plan
when I needed that extra bit of excitement to get the infants engaged and interested.

What did not work during this learning experience? Why?

Throughout the week, the only things that I found I had troubles with was setting up and keeping
the activities as small group activities.
Being in a room full of infants does not give you a lot of time by yourself. They love to be held or in
your space seeing what you are doing and wanting to participate. This was a bit of a disadvantage
when trying to set up because they would want to have whatever you have or are trying to set up
and it in turn either prolonged the set up process or put me in a situation where I had to think fast
and improvise on how to set up fast or get their attention on something else.
The challenge of keeping the activities small group oriented was hard because when infants see
their friends having fun or the staff participating in an activity, they automatically want to join. By
being on the safe side and having enough materials for the whole class made this challenge
easier. In the end I enjoyed doing the activities as a whole class instead of small groups.

What might you do differently in the future?

In the future, something that I would do differently would be the size of group the activity is made
for. While setting up, I would like to set out enough materials for the whole class instead of a small
group because by the end of each activity all the infants were participating. I personally enjoyed
all the infants participating at once because it was interesting to see all the different reacts they
had while using their senses and also how far along each infant was in their ability to use fine
motor skills.