Why You Shouldn't Over-Decorate an Early Learning Classroom

If you're like me, you probably follow some teacher or home-school influencers on social media. You've likely noticed how bright, colorful, and jam-packed their classrooms visually look, decorated to the brim with bright colors, alphabets, and posters filling every corner. This might even be how you remember your own kindergarten or preschool classroom. While these spaces may look cheerful and appealingly to adults who teach young children, even helping to cultivate some childlike feelings for adults, research finds that overly decorates classroom actually reduce the effectiveness of learning, especially for our young learners (Fisher et al., 2014).

The Developing Mind: Why Simplicity Matters

Young children have a developing regulatory system. You may have noticed this when your toddler has big emotions and struggles to clam down afterwards. Or your toddler may have trouble regulating their behaviors when playing with peers. One of the most essential skills developing during these early years, especially in today's fast-paced world of short-form media, is focused attention.

Focused attention refers to the ability to sustain focus on one task at a time for a set period of time. Children are just starting to develop and hone this skill. As cognitive psychologist from UC Berkeley Alison Gopnik describes, a child's attention is like a diffuse lantern of light, illuminating a wide area, while an adult's attention is like a spotlight, narrowed in on one thing at a time and filtering out distractions.

Classroom Design and Cognitive Load When setting up a classroom for optimal learning, it's important to consider children's cognitive capacity at young ages. Young children (2-6 year olds) with their diffuse attention and developing regulation skills can easily become distracted in cluttered environments. Fisher and colleagues (2014) found that too much art on the walls, too many different colored letters and numbers, and bright and visually appealing decorations all over a classroom actually hindered young children's learning. Kindergarteners actually learned better in simpler, less visually stimulating classroom environments.

Now you might be thinking, how boring would a classroom be with no art on the walls! And I agree, we all want children to feel joy, warmth, and belonging in their learning spaces. The key to consider here is balance: creating warm, welcoming environments that still allow children to develop the foundation skill of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive regulation. A well-designed, simple classroom space not only helps children concentrate and learn, but it also nurtures emotional stability.

To all those creative teachers and TikTok homeschool moms filling our feeds with inspiration, remember that sometimes less is more. Simplifying your early learning classroom and spaces help young children regulate both their brains and bodies so they can truly thrive!