Less is More

Ah, the beginning of a new school year!   Blank walls ready to be filled with number lines, colors, alphabets, posters, pictures, calendars, and every manner of bright, colorful decoration.  But are all these space fillers really necessary?  More importantly, are they adding anything to the education of the young children in the classroom or might they be doing just the opposite?  Is less really better when it comes to classroom décor?  Some researchers think so. Check out this recent article in the New York Times- Rethinking the Colorful Kindergarten Classroom.
Here is a link to research cited in the article Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning in Young Children: When Too Much of a Good Thing May Be Bad
In fact, some early childhood specialists have been saying the same thing for at least a decade as indicated by this 2004 NAEYC document, Consider the Walls.