Of all the areas in our lives, none shape our behavior, health, and happiness as much as our environment.
– Ingrid Fetel Lee

In their popular book, Complementary Curriculum Approach, Lisa Porter Kuh and Iris Chin Ponte offer helpful points of reflection about the physical environment in early childhood classrooms:

What is the first thing you see?
How do you feel in your room?
What do you need from your surroundings to do your best work and learning?
What do the children need?

They explain, “This is about more than beautiful classrooms painted in soft tones. It is also about children’s access to prepared environments that are interesting, spark independence and agency, and are happy and joyful places to learn. This kind of environment should be a right for every child.”

And in Caring Spaces, Learning Places, by Jim Greenman (updated by Mike Lindstrom) the classroom environment for young children is defined as even more than the physical space. Educators are urged to also consider:

• the sensory environment (light, smells, textures, colors, sounds, temperature…) 
• the social environment (Are children supported in being able to find spaces to be alone, to help recover from the sometimes stressful task of needing to constantly interact with others?) 
• the temporal environment (Is there adequate time allocated for the various aspects of children’s days?)