If you have been looking around, you may notice that most daycare have a cute appeal similar to each other – colourful walls and small furniture. But you may not know this: a good daycare space design is more than cute. There is careful consideration of its layout, safety, beauty, acoustics, and educational effectiveness. To be licensed by the government body regulating child care centres in Malaysia (JKM), there are a few requirements to meet such as minimum floor space, natural lighting and ventilation, and materials and interior finishes.

Daycare spaces should be age appropriate

In Malaysia, a daycare or taska caters to infants until preschoolers aged four. This facility requires environments that can stimulate children’s brains by encouraging sensory development, pattern recognition, and safe mobility on a level surface. Potentially hazardous things like scissors and ropes should not be available in this area. The bathroom is also modified with child-sized toilets, lower-level sinks, and so on.

Daycare spaces should be safe and clean

Safety and cleanliness go hand-in-hand. Both are crucial in a daycare environment where a large number of children are present at one time. Choo Choo Train makes the environment safe for children in the following ways:

• We use a floor plan that allows our teachers to scan the entire room, and to find or check on students quickly.
• We use gates, doors, and other barriers that keep strangers out and students contained in a reasonable manner.
• We use cleanable toys and furniture, lock our cleaning products, and perform daily cleaning routines.
• We store everything in an organized way. For example, each student has a designated bin in designated cubbies for personal belongings, and each toy or learning material has its own container.
• We provide cushioned mats for crawling and walking practice areas, bolt shelves to the walls, install handrails on stairs, and so on.
• We give appropriate learning materials to children based on their age group.  We avoid sponge-like materials that babies can chew off and choke on, and we screen the materials that students bring from home.
• These are just some of our safety and cleanliness procedures. We also keep our centers safe by training our teachers to supervise diligently and educating students on the safety rules of the classroom.

Daycare spaces should be educational 

Daycare spaces should be playful and educational because children need to play for development. This is why we have:

• Sufficient toys and materials for all children to play and learn without tension.
• Learning materials that encourage multiple areas of intelligence such as language, math, music, art, and more.
• Equipment and activities for developing fine and gross motor skills like crafts and climbing.
• Opportunities for practicing and learning social skills with peers.

We also consider the flow of our daycare space to invoke calmness and allow students to focus when they are learning through play. Based on our experience of running Choo Choo Train Child Care and Kindergarten for 10 years, we can tell you that a space that meets the needs of your child can make a big difference in how they will benefit from the program.