Environment

 

The learning environment at Blue School is carefully planned and reflects the values as well as the pedagogic and academic goals of the school. As such, the environment acts as a “third teacher,” facilitating academic content and use of the lenses.

 

As a base camp, Blue School provides a stable environment for organizing material and tools, planning, reconnaissance and evaluation so that, over time, documentation from off-site studies, including field trips, and work in other designated contexts becomes a tangible extension of ongoing learning and projects. As work takes place outside the school, the experiences and activities it supports return to the school and re-inform its culture.

 

As children grow and get older, established classroom environments become more complex and diversified. For example, the youngest classrooms offer at least two separate spaces that allow for quiet or active engagement and are easily transformed to accommodate changes of content.  

 

The primary school classrooms, by design, each offer four to five areas that are clearly articulated to support the different ways lenses and intelligences can be used.  Based on thoughtfully considered goals and intentions, some facilitate more physical levels of exploration, building, and constructing, while others encourage planning, evaluation, and research. Overall, these areas establish a spectrum for applying thinking and conducting oneself, from integrated and emergent inquiry to stand-alone concept work and skill learning.  Spaces throughout Blue School, such as corridors, soft spaces, kitchen, a large indoor multi-use space, and outdoor areas are extensions of the classrooms and aid in preparing children and adults for working together beyond the school’s building.

 

Blue School Classroom Areas Supported by Design and Intention

 

Some of the diverse classroom and environmental spaces in Blue School and how they support different
modalities and ways of thinking:

 

LAB AREAS

  • Organizes organic and manufactured materials, tools and technologies for use in relationship to exploration, skill building, research expression and thinking.
  • Accommodates wet, messy, and louder ways of working.
  • Are found in most classrooms and, with younger children, is the general characteristic of the overall environment.
  • Involves projecting, following instructions, experimentation, and exploration.

MEDIA AREA

  • Offers a quieter space that highlights planning, referencing, composition, and drafting.
  • Nurtures the innocent, and artist roles with small group work, planning, projecting and composing.
  • Provides materials for graphing, composing, writing, organizing, and creating layouts such as computers, reference books, guides, and tables and chairs.

CONSTRUCTION AREA

  • Accommodates activites such as laying out posters, organizing exhibit composites, or having large gourp conversations for planning and reflection.
  • Provides building materials, tool benches, blocks, magnet tables, and circuitry panels.
  • Serves as a physically active and dynamic space that can also be a quiet area for general group reflection supported by the revisiting of documentation and children's work.

MANIPULATIVE AREA

  • Encourages work on fine-motor experiences and small group or individual work with the presence of tables and shelves.
  • Provides puzzles, books and games as well as spaces to manipulate materials, weave, create patterns and count.

PERFORMANCE AND DRAMATIC PLAY AREAS

  • The multi-purpose room, outdoor space, and Studio are all spaces that support the exploration and expression of the body, listening and presenting, recording, and experimenting.