Learning Environments
Through a design-based approach, using high-quality furniture and toys that celebrate and promote creativity and imagination, Guidecraft encourages experiences that satisfy a child’s play-based learning needs in traditional classroom settings and in home-based learning environments. In collaboration with trusted experts like Director of Architecture and Environmental Design, Lauren Magee, Guidecraft strives to provide lifestyle-oriented academic environments. Using arts and nature-based products and furniture, young children can experience open-ended play and meaningful, child-led learning opportunities in institutions as well as in the home.
Setting up a Home Classroom Environment
When adapting parts of your home to create a learning environment for young children, it is important to think about your already established space. Focus on the safety and functionality of your home and the pieces you wish to incorporate and find ways for your children to be involved in the design process. Consider lighting, potential activities and the ages of your children when mapping out your learning area. For more ideas, watchLauren’s Learning Lab, a series that follows Lauren Magee and her family though their design process and journey to a new normal.
Key Areas
A well-designed, functional home learning environment satisfies a child’s learning needs by adjusting learning zones found in traditional educational settings to work outside the classroom. Some key areas that should be present in all home-based learning environments are:
Lauren’s Learning Lab
Lauren Magee, a mother, architect and teacher, shares her unique expertise with other parents that are suddenly homeschooling in her new, design-based YouTube series calledLauren’s Learning Lab. Follow this weekly series for advice on how to create a home-based learning environment and stay sane on the path to a new normal by subscribing to our Guidecraft Youtube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/c/guidecraft
Lauren Magee
Lauren Magee is the Director of Architecture and Environmental Design at Guidecraft. Her years of professional experience as an executive-level architect and principal at L K Magee Architecture + Design, her role as an associate professor of architecture at Drexel University and Illinois Institute of Technology, her recent tenure as an elected school board member, and her current work with students and teachers at all levels combine to enrich her inspired approach in the design of children’s learning environments.
