The Sense of Place for Wee Ones collection conceived by Dr. Sandra Duncan is the first modular furniture system that nurtures a child’s inherent need to move, play, and belong. Built upon extensive research and theory, this beautiful collection provides infants and toddlers with an environment that supports their innate play patterns and encourages physical and cognitive development.
Hover over or tap on the items in the following images to see more information about each piece in the collection.
The innovative 360° play design and the incorporation of intentional holes, ramps, mirrors and levels, transforms traditional storage into exciting play opportunities and encourages young children to actively engage with the furniture from all sides.
Infants, toddlers, and two-year-olds have a natural drive to move and explore. Designed to purposefully encourage their innate play patterns and repetitive behaviors, the Sense of Place for Wee Ones Collection invites children to enthusiastically connect with the world around them and gain deeper understandings by amplifying the axioms of sensorimotor play.
Children have an ingrained need to transport items. This collection inspires them to transport balls, ribbon, and other materials to explore how the items interact with each piece of furniture.
Children are compelled to put stuff in holes! This collection features many intentional holes and hiding places for them to investigate and to watch as items disappear and reappear again.
Children are intuitive improvisers and creatives. Watch children interact with the Sense of Place for Wee Ones Collection as they invent and devise unique ways to use each piece.
Designed to include knobs, ramps, and varying levels, this collection engages children’s natural inclination to spin, roll, turn, and inspect different levels on apparatus.
Sense of Place for Wee Ones celebrates the spirit of place by rejoicing in the wonder of childhood and the importance of being little. The key features of this collection emerged from innate characteristics that infants and toddlers exhibit. These characteristics are intricately woven throughout the design.
Wee ones have an inherent need to move. Through its intentional design, this collection promotes the repetitive movements that children need to engage in to learn, grow and develop.
Wee ones use all of their senses while establishing understanding of their environments. Details in this collection like ramps, holes, mirrors, and levels enrich play and encourage sensorial experiences.
Wee ones will exuberantly navigate their environments in unique and unusual ways. Coves, tunnels and pieces designed to be interacted with from all sides, provide visual and physical pathways throughout the classroom.
Wee ones interpret their environment in unexpected ways. The furniture in this collection can easily be rearranged and reorganized, creating modular systems that meet their changing needs.
»Experts, from Piaget and Montessori to Neil deGrasse Tyson agree, babies are born scientists. They observe interactions and test their hypotheses just like scientists do. Toddlers are also born engineers. During play, they experiment with cause-and-effect to solve problems and test their physical skills. The brilliance of the Wee Ones collection is that it responds to this natural curiosity with built-in invitations to investigate ideas. From strategically placed ramps and holes to openings just perfect for crawling inside, this furniture blurs the line between functional shelves and interactive big body play. Because these activities appeal to their play schema for orientation, enclosure, transporting, connecting, and rotation, very young children will busy themselves with spontaneous scientific engineering work, giving caregivers an opportunity to follow Magda Gerber's advice: 'Do less, observe more, enjoy most.'“
With over 45 years of experience and a doctorate in education, Dr. Sandra Duncan has a wide and varied background in early care and education. She has extensive experience in working with young children and parents, teaching at the university level, designing professional development programs for practitioners, and authoring several teacher resource books. Now, Dr. Duncan is bringing her years of theory and best practices to the early childhood classroom in the form of the Sense of Place furniture collection - an exclusive to the Kaplan portfolio of furniture offerings. With its modern aesthetics, many authentic and true-to-real-life details, and considerations for what the youngest of children need to thrive best in their first learning environments, the Sense of Place collection provides ECE educators a beautiful backdrop to creating the most meaningful and lasting of learning experiences for years to come.