I am currently looking at purchasing new materials for some of our classrooms and have downloaded the materials guide needed for each age group.
I’d like to know the minimum of duplicates – if it says that there should be at least 3 per child – does that mean if you have 10 children, you should provide 30 rattles? What do you do with the abundance of rattles, etc and where do you store it/them?
The Infant/Toddler Materials Guide references many types of materials that should be included in an infant/toddler or two year old room. On page 14, it states that there should be enough overall variety in the classroom materials so that there are at least three items per child. This does not mean that you should have three duplicates per child, only that there should be three accessible items per child which can include duplicates.
Additionally, the ABC Level B 0-2 standards include an item that examines the provision of duplicates in Infant, Toddler and Two Year old classrooms. The purpose of this item is to ensure that adequate materials are readily available and accessible for young children and to minimize potential conflicts that may arise between children who are wanting the same toys. Research indicates that children during these stages of development are egocentric and do not understand the concept of sharing.
The required number of duplicates to receive credit for this item is 4. This means that there should be 4 sets of identical toys per classroom. This amount is based on a group size of 10 children per infant and toddler room and no more than 14 children per two year old room, which are the recommended group sizes according to ABC Level B standards. If your program chooses to maintain group sizes larger than what ABC recommends then you may want to increase the number of duplicates accordingly.
Unfortunately, the ABC Program does not have any grants for materials purchases available at this time.