Dr Sandra Duncan on Early Childhood Design Principles

With over 45 years of experience and a doctorate in education, Dr Sandra Duncan has a wide and varied background at the national and international level in early childcare and education. She has extensive experience in working with young children and parents, teaching at the university level (doctorate students and early childhood students), designing and writing professional development programs for practitioners and creating a new line of preschool furniture called Sense of Place.

Dr Duncan has authored several teacher resource books including Inspiring Spaces for Young Children with Jessica Deviney, Sara Harris, Mary Ann Rody and Lois Rosenberry and – Through a Child’s Eyes: How Classroom Design Inspires Learning and Wonder with Jody Martin and Sally Haughey. Her newest book is called The Honeycomb Hypothesis and is published by Exchange Press.

In this interview we discuss the four design beliefs or pillars that Dr Duncan starts with when designing a space for children – nature aligned, heart centric, sensory based and authentically inspired. Dr Duncan explains the main benefits of designing spaces using this framework and how this can be applied to any setting or childcare centre, whatever size or wherever you are in the world.

We also touch on her soon to be published book: The Honeycomb Hypothesis: How infants, toddlers and two-year-olds learn through Nature Play. This is a fascinating new way of thinking about play and how we can supporting children’s learning through the way that they play naturally.

Links:

Dr Sandra Duncan’s website is: https://sandraduncan.com/

https://www.gryphonhouse.com/our-authors/author-detail/sandra-duncan

https://positivepsychology.com/attention-restoration-theory/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inspiring-Spaces-Children-Jessica-Deviney/dp/0876593171

https://universityfc.com/senseofplace/

Dr Sandra Duncan’s papers can be found here for a small fee: https://www.childcareexchange.com/catalog/magazine/

And her new book The Honeycomb Hypothesis and is published by Exchange Press will be available on this site: https://www.childcareexchange.com/catalog/

Find out more about Sense of Place equipment here: https://www.kaplanco.com/SenseOfPlace