The most important part of operating any child care program is to create an environment that provides comfort and a sense of community. School Age programs are often run in shared spaces, and so the flexibility in the environment is not as feasible as it would be in a permanent space. This encourages staff to think about the materials and structures that they can bring in, and the learning opportunities that they can provide to help meet the needs of each child. Using structures from Conscious Discipline® has guided our program in creating an environment that everyone feels a part of, and the individual child is acknowledged and supported.
We believe it is essential to make a point of greeting each child by name. Most of the children will opt to give us a high five or fist pump with the greeting, and some children choose to have a no touch greeting. Whatever the child chooses, the emphasis is on personal acknowledgment and a recognition that we are happy they are here. When there are a larger number of children in our care, too often we can lose track of names or specific personal details of the children.
Loose parts provide the foundation for a play-based emergent curriculum that focuses on inquiry driven learning. According to Simon Nicholson, the definition for loose parts states: “In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.” 
