Just a few ideas here... hopefully it will help!
Take into consideration the ages and abilities of the children in care in order to provide appropriate toys and learning experiences eg you wouldn't give a 2 year old a 100 piece puzzle! Ensure that there are plenty of different toys and resources available so the children can choose what to play with. Especially with younger ones, 0 - 3's maybe, it's a good idea to have a couple of each toy as they are not yet ready to share and don't understand the concept of taking turns! Make sure all the furniture for children's use is clean and in good condition, no broken parts or sharp edges etc, make sure it is child sized as a 2 year old trying to climb up onto an adult chair is just asking for trouble! lol! As for making choices for self directed learning, I think you just need to be flexible eg don't freak out if little Tommy takes the dinosaurs over to the playdough area so they can build a volcano together! Allowing the children to decide (to a certain extent) what they want to play with, how, when and where allows them to extend their learning through exploring their own interests and lets them learn at their own pace in their own way
I hope some of that helped?
