Why change your early years book area?
Continuous provision in your book area can have a massive impact on your early years environment and it can immediately create a space where children can truly engage with the resources around them. When considering the value your book area gives to your children you may want to revisit old observations to see how much learning is happening whilst your children are in this area.
Your book area should be an actively used area of your room containing all the resources children need to investigate their interests, independently explore and make sense of the world around them. The book area is an area that every room should have regardless of the age or stage of the children they work with. An outstanding book area will go above and beyond holding the basic books and display a wide variety of resources that can intrigue and support any learning and development. You may choose to rotate the resources you keep out in your book corner so it often appears new and exciting again for the children. Adult involvement is important and practitioners should sensitively join in with children’s independent exploration. Don’t forget to be mind full of good practice in promoting speech and language development.
Top tips for enhancing your book area
Follow these easy tips to transform your early years book area through your effective continuous provision
- Make your book area an inviting, comfortable space where children can go and have some quiet time whilst using the resources in there.
- You may choose to add cushions or beanbags and use furniture wisely to create a section where the children feel enclosed and relaxed.
- Book areas should not just include books – Add other reading materials such as brochures, leaflets, newspapers and magazines. Although these may not last for long they can often be picked up for free.
- Include puppets in your book area – Small finger puppets, larger puppets, realistic persona dolls or animals, the choice is yours but any puppets allow the children to explore and express themselves and they make a great accompaniment to any story. It allows the children to perform and explore the books through the puppets.
- Create or buy your own story sacks – Story sacks involve various props or puppets which allow the children to act out key points in a story, this makes sequencing clearer and gives opportunity for the children to creatively and critically think.
- Think about the quality of the books you have in your early years setting – Do you have a wide variety including fiction and non fiction? Hard back and paper back? Books which include other languages? Religion and culture books? And importantly do you have books which follow on from the children’s interests?
Visit our Book Area Pinterest Board, this may help you with ideas of how to enhance your book area in your setting.