Whether you’re furnishing one Head Start classroom or several, staying on budget and meeting performance standards will be two of your top priorities. Thoughtful planning at the beginning of this process will ensure you create classrooms that align with Head Start’s objectives and satisfy your budget.
Kaplan has supported Head Start for over 50 years, providing furnishings, learning center materials, and teacher resources for hundreds of centers across the country. We are also the Corporate Champion of the Dollar Per Child campaign, which is Head Start’s annual effort to elevate awareness in communities and raise funds to reach more children.
As part of our continuing support, we want to partner with you to furnish a Head Start classroom where all children’s needs are met and all teachers feel supported. In this article, you’ll see a full cost breakdown of a Head Start classroom—from furniture items to learning center manipulatives—that will enable you to design a classroom that enhances learning, promotes play, and supports Head Start standards.
To calculate these costs, we used a sample classroom enrollment of 20 children because Head Start’s Program Performance Standards identify 20 as the maximum enrollment number for a class. We also made sure that the manipulatives and other learning center materials we chose were developmentally appropriate for the 3-4-year-old children that will be in Head Start preschool classrooms.
Furniture fulfills a variety of purposes in the Head Start classroom, such as providing storage and giving children places to eat, learn, and socialize. Furniture also helps to create organized classrooms which, according to Head Start, tend to generate higher levels of engagement and learning. In this section, we will discuss the costs of the various types of furniture you will need in your Head Start classroom, from storage units to carpets and chairs.
Lockers and cubbies help children feel secure in the classroom by giving them a designated place to put their belongings. Placing a locker or cubby by the door will also help you accomplish the Head Start objective of using furniture to define boundaries—in addition to the door, the locker or cubby can mark the entrance and exit point of the classroom.
To provide adequate accommodation for every child—and to prevent the spread of germs—you will need 20 individual locker or cubby spaces for a classroom of 20 children. This will cost anywhere from $600-$4,500.
Carpets benefit Head Start classrooms in many ways: they make them inviting and comfortable, they enable educators to follow Head Start’s recommendation of creating a space where the whole class can gather, they reduce noise, and they give learning centers a warm feel. Depending on the size, shape, and number of carpets you purchase for your classroom, you will need to budget around $800-$1,200.
Tables provide a space for many classroom activities. They enable children to make good friends while eating good food; create artistic masterpieces; and bond with their teacher during engaging group activities.
In a Head Start classroom with 20 children, you will need enough table space to comfortably seat everyone during meals as well as a few tables for learning centers such as dramatic play or art. Altogether, the cost to buy enough tables to meet these goals will be somewhere in the range of $1,350-$1,550.
Your classroom should have a variety of seating options that accommodate meals, group activities, sensory needs, and relaxation. The correct chair height range for children in a Head Start preschool classroom (who are 3-4 years old) is 11.5”-13.5”. For a classroom of 20 children, you will need at least 20 chairs for mealtimes, some soft seating options such as couches and chairs, and some flexible seating options for children who need movement and sensory input to help with regulation and focus. All this will cost between $3,700 and $4,800.
Providing sufficient sleeping solutions is necessary for ensuring that all the children in your classroom get enough rest during the day. Depending on your space, preference, and budget, you can use cots or mats to meet this need. Twenty cots and cot sheets—or 20 mats and mat sheets—will cost around $1,800-$2,000.
Storage units are necessary for organizing your classroom materials and making items easily accessible for children as they learn through play. Head Start recommends putting learning centers next to storage, so you will need to include storage units when planning for your learning centers. Depending on the material, size, and shape of the storage units you choose, you can expect to spend between $3,300 and $4,700.
In addition to storage units, smaller bins and organizers will keep classroom materials neat, tidy, and easily accessible for children during free play. Storage bins are perfect for smaller items such as Legos, art supplies, and toy animals. Buying storage bins for these kinds of materials in your classroom will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $900-$1,400.
When you fill a Head Start classroom with high-quality, developmentally appropriate furniture, you are making a long-term investment in children’s learning and safety. The total cost of the items we discussed in this section is around $12,500-$20,500. Please keep in mind that this figure could change based on a number of factors including classroom size, enrollment numbers, and preferred products.
Learning centers give children the opportunity to develop social-emotional skills as they pursue their interests in STEM, literacy, and other subjects. Learning centers will also help you develop children’s knowledge and skills across the five domains of Head Start’s Early Learning Outcomes Framework. In this section, we will offer cost estimates for some common early childhood learning centers that you will likely have in your Head Start classroom.
Dramatic play areas support children’s development in the Head Start Framework’s social and emotional development, language and literacy, and approaches to learning domains. They do this by enabling children to engage in role play as police officers or doctors; giving children the means to work together with their friends to cook a delicious meal; and permitting children to act out real-life scenarios as a way to process their emotions and make sense of the world.
To offer children all of these possibilities, your dramatic play center should facilitate many forms of pretend play with items such as kitchen units, faux foods and utensils, dress-up outfits, and dolls. A fully stocked dramatic play center will cost somewhere in the range of $2,300-$3,500.
Block play is important for developing skills such as fine motor dexterity, problem solving, and critical thinking. It also improves children’s competencies in the Head Start Framework’s mathematics development and perceptual, motor, and physical development domains.
Your Head Start classroom’s block center should have enough blocks to allow multiple children to build at the same time. You can also incorporate block play accessories such as homes and vehicles to permit children to create stories and not just structures. A fully stocked block center will cost roughly $1,300-$1,700.
The Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework divides its cognition domain into two parts: mathematics development and scientific reasoning. A robust science and math center can grow children’s knowledge and skills in both parts. With intentional planning, you can create a vibrant center where children learn to associate numbers with quantities, categorize observable phenomena, and much more.
To stock a center that provides rich science and math experiences, include open-ended materials such as loose parts, shells, specimen stones, and other materials that children can explore and investigate. A fully stocked STEM center will cost around $800-$1,300.
Art is one of the best ways for children to express themselves. Artistic experiences will also support the creativity sub-domain of the Head Start Framework’s approaches to learning domain and the Framework’s perceptual, motor, and physical development domain.
An art center in a Head Start classroom should give children a variety of creative materials such as easels, drawing paper, paint, paintbrushes, and crayons. To incorporate a good mix of art supplies, budget between $1,200-$2,000. Please keep in mind that many art items are consumables, so make room in your budget for ordering replacements.
Literacy is one of the two major components of the Head Start Framework’s language and literacy domain. So, a literacy center where children can immerse themselves in books and storytelling will go a long way toward ensuring that children meet the goals Head Start identifies, which include phonological awareness and understanding of narrative structure.
A well-equipped reading and literacy center will include a variety of books, felt sets, puppets, and other literacy materials, totaling around $1,300-$1,500.
To accurately determine how much you will pay to outfit a Head Start classroom, you need to consider everything the classroom will include, from large items such as storage units to small items such as the math manipulatives in your science and math learning center.
For a Head Start classroom with 20 children, you can expect to pay around $20,000-$31,000 to furnish and outfit it fully.
However, this price estimate may vary based on the amount of space you have, the products you choose, the centers you include or exclude, and many other factors.
This article has equipped you to start budgeting and planning for your Head Start preschool classroom build. Ready to furnish or purchase items for your Head Start classroom? Take a look at our Head Start preschool classroom list for ideas and inspiration. With this list, you can adjust item quantities and overall prices according to your needs and interests. Your local educational sales representative is also available to help you select items that fit within your budget and meet the needs of your Head Start space.