Armstrong, an international educational consultant for child and youth programs, helps family child care providers retain their homestyle atmosphere while creating learning environments that are conducive to the setting. Using many color photos, she illustrates how to arrange furniture, store materials, declutter the space, and select items. She discusses color, lighting, patterns, and texture; storage; room arrangements; designing for children with special needs; various learning zones; outdoor play area design and accessibility; and health and safety guidelines. No index is supplied. (Annotation©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Armstrong, an experienced family child care professional, shows providers how to design inviting learning environments that meet the unique needs of family child care. This book is based on the author’s observation that family child care environments have lost the feeling of “home” as they are increasingly set up as generic, mini child development centers. Armstrong highlights the advantages of offering care and education in a home. She presents strategies for creating indoor and outdoor spaces that capture the intimacy and warmth of home and invite children to explore and try out their ideas.   The author helps providers understand how the physical environment influences the behavior and mood of the children and adults who use. It. She describes the basic elements of design and demonstrates how to use color, texture, lighting, and patterns to promote relaxation and calmness in some areas and excitement and active engagement in others. Vivid color photographs of family child care settings visually communicate the practical suggestions for selecting, organizing, storing, and arranging materials and furniture and for setting up rich outdoor learning spaces in yards, patios, and porches. The author addresses the challenges of serving a range of ages and adapting to limited time, space, and money through topics such as avoiding clutter, setting up multiuse learning areas, and providing a quiet space when a child might need to be alone.

While Armstrong’s advice on environment setup is directed to family child care providers, this book can help any teacher who feels environmental changes are needed to meet children’s interests. Along with design suggestions, Armstrong offers classroom assessment tools, such as checklists and questions to help teachers evaluate the characteristics of their current learning environment.