While you can't physically hear it, your classroom environment speaks to those within its walls. Your classroom's furnishings, materials, and design greatly influence child behavior and control emotions, and they also play a significant role in the success of a child's cognitive growth and development.
To create optimal learning environments in your early childhood program, you want to incorporate furnishings, materials, and activities that facilitate skill development based on the 5 C’s of 21st-century learning. By doing so, you encourage children to learn through play, interact appropriately with friends and peers, think critically and creatively, and better understand their place in the world.
At Kaplan, our mission is to help early childhood programs create learning environments that support every child's academic and developmental success. We do this by working with industry experts to design, manufacture, and deliver high-quality furniture and materials to classrooms across the United States.
In this article, you’ll learn more about the 5 C’s of 21st-century learning and how you can create early childhood classroom environments that help children build these fundamental skills.
What are the 5 C's of 21st-century learning?
While skills such as literacy, math, and science are integral to a child’s success, there are other skills they need to grasp in order to be successful in today’s world. This is referred to as the 5 C's of 21st-century learning and include:- Creative Thinking
- Communication
- Character
- Collaboration
- Critical Thinking
What role do the 5 C's play in a child’s growth and development?
The 5 C’s shape not only what children know but who they are as individuals. With these skills, children feel confident when interacting with peers and have more resilience in the face of challenges.
How can you bring the 5 C’s into your classroom design?
The classroom environment can greatly affect how a child thinks, learns, and acts. Optimal environments that enhance the growth of the 5 C’s should be safe and predictable, nurture children’s interests, and offer a variety of materials and activities that encourage learning through play. Below, you will find examples of how you can create classroom environments that support these five fundamental skills:
1. Creative Thinking
Creative thinking allows children to test out new ideas, think freely, and find new ways to express themselves. Activities such as painting, sculpture-making, role-playing, building, and dancing require children to use their imagination and flex their creative muscles. Creative thinking may start with a child imitating what they see others doing, but eventually, they will become innovative thinkers who create solutions on their own.
Setting up an art center with paint and paper is an obvious way to bring creativity into your classroom environment, but it's not the only one. A maker space provides an area in your classroom where children can explore and create objects using loose parts and other materials. Your classroom block center is another area that inspires creativity as children build and construct structures using a wide assortment of materials.
No matter how you design a classroom space that promotes creativity, remember that true creativity happens when children focus less on the result and more on the process of creation. Whether children are painting a self-portrait or building a skyscraper with blocks, encourage them to use their imagination, analyze their results, and be open to new ideas.
Inspiring spaces that promote creative thinking:
2. Communication
Literacy success later in life is directly connected to strong communication skills children develop at a young age. Storytelling, speaking, using sign language, and listening are all communication skills that help young children build lasting relationships. Teacher-led instruction and classroom conversations help children master this valuable skill, and so can your environment.
Creating documentation walls in classroom learning centers is a great way to get conversations flowing between children, teachers, and family members. After reading a book during circle time, place it in a relevant learning center to help children associate the words they read and/or hear with their actions as they play. You can also add authentic props and realistic materials to your dramatic play areas so children can act out real-life scenarios and learn to communicate their thoughts and feelings appropriately.
Remember, communication is a skill that children learn through visual and verbal methods. Take every opportunity to incorporate literacy, visual aids, or spoken language in your classroom.
Inspiring spaces that promote communication:
3. Character
Personal attributes such as honesty, empathy, and resilience make up a child’s character, however, these skills are not something a child is born with. The best way for children to improve their character is by practicing and watching character-building in action.
Open-ended play provides many opportunities for children to work on character-building together. In the dramatic play center, they can take turns role-playing teachers, doctors, chefs, and other roles that encourage taking care of others. A classroom block or construction center is a great place for children to learn how to regulate their emotions when obstacles arise. Books and other classroom materials can provide visual aids that show children how to be a positive influence on others.
Remember that children will need guidance and support as they work on character-building skills. To make children feel safe while experiencing this type of growth, create a “calming corner” in your classroom that offers respite to children who need a deep breath and a moment to control their emotions.
Inspiring spaces that promote character building:
4. Collaboration
Collaborative play is instrumental in helping children learn how to get along well with others. This type of play also provides children with new view points and ways of learning they may never have experienced on their own. When we think of collaborative play, we typically think of children role-playing in a dramatic play center.
However, there are other ways your environment can promote collaboration.
Your entire classroom environment has the opportunity to promote collaboration.
Sensory bins and sand tables provide many opportunities for children to work together in small groups as they explore materials, textures, and scientific concepts. Children can work together in the block center to build a cityscape complete with skyscrapers, trains, and farms. Interactive panels and other pieces of classroom technology also allow children to collaborate as they complete puzzles and other challenges on the screen.
Young children are constantly learning how to interact appropriately in group play settings. Provide encouragement and guidance to help them keep their cool and stay positive toward peers as they build this skill.
Inspiring spaces that promote collaboration:
5. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a skill that involves children working on a problem until they find a solution. The problem could be anything, from building a block structure that keeps toppling over to designing a pulley system that will not lift a heavy rock off the ground. Games, puzzles, and open-ended play experiences allow children to test their ideas until they come up with a solution.
You can create a classroom environment that promotes critical thinking by incorporating a STEM station or construction area that encourages children to put on their thinking caps as they work to find solutions. To encourage critical thinking skills in every classroom learning center, incorporate the use of one-sentence prompts to help children "think outside the box" as they start working on new projects.
Inspiring spaces that promote critical thinking:
Ready to create learning environments that promote the 5 C's?
Now that you understand how creative thinking, communication, collaboration, character, and critical thinking can shape your early childhood classrooms, it's time to consider how you can incorporate classroom design and furnishings that improve the development of these skills. No matter how you decide to setup your learning spaces, every successful classroom environment starts with a plan and inspiration.
The myKaplan Classroom FloorPlanner is a free tool for creating digital renderings of early childhood classrooms. Using items from the Kaplan inventory, like the Sense of Place collection, you can add and arrange classroom furnishings within your design to get a realistic view of how they will fit in your space and promote the growth and development of young children.
Click here to start using this free classroom design tool today!