Update a Baby Nursery to a Preschool Bedroom

When your baby starts crawling, walking and moving quickly into his toddler years, you may not need to make too many changes to the baby nursery decor. As long as the child's safety is being addressed, there is not you need to change in the room. Once the child reaches preschool age, around three or four, it's time to update the nursery to a bedroom that stimulates and suits a preschooler.

Update a Baby Nursery to a Preschool Bedroom

Pastel to Neutral with Primary Accents

If the baby nursery was decorated with pastel colors, it's time to update them. While preschoolers are drawn to primary colors, namely yellow, blue and red, that does not give parents the green light to go hog-wild with Crayola walls. Instead, provide a subdued and neutral backdrop in the room and use the primary colors to decorate the room. (Sherwin-Williams) Neutral wall colors also make future transitions of the child's bedroom easier.

Exceptions to the neutral wall color rule include situations when the preschooler has made a specific request to paint the room a certain color. The child may be drawn to a shade of blue or yellow and request that wall color.

ABCs and 123s

While you may have used a jungle theme, frog theme or princess theme in baby's nursery, now is the time to stimulate a preschooler's sponge-like mind with graphic representations of letters and numbers. He will be spending many hours over the next couple of years learning how to recognize these characters, placing the words with the characters, and learning how to create these characters on his own.

You can add the alphabet and basic numbers 1 through 20 to a preschooler's room in a number of ways. Stencils provide a semi-permanent and stationary decorative element to the room. Preschoolers can interact better with adhesive and removable letter and number decals, a magnetic wall or chalkboard with magnets or foam floor mats of the alphabet.

Or create movable letters using die-cut letters, laminating them and adding Velcro sewing circles to the back. Add another set of the Velcro circles to the walls and encourage the preschooler to manipulate the letters.

Children of preschool age who attend preschool are also interested in calendars. Add a calendar to your preschooler's room.

Art in its Place

Find a place in the preschooler's room to hang his art work. Add squares of cork to a wall, or hang a retractable clothesline, out of reach, and hang the preschooler's artwork with plastic clothespins.

Books, Front and Center

Add a bookshelf or cube shelves to the room and fill them with books. Sort through the books and change them seasonally and during the holidays. Provide a cushion or sleeping bag and ample lighting near the books, encouraging the preschooler to get comfortable with his books.

Picture Perfect: Labeled Clothing Storage

Make labels for baskets, bins or dresser drawers which include pictures of clothing items along with words. This makes it easier for the preschooler to find his own clothes and dress himself.

Sources

Personal Experience
Graduate to Color, Sherwin-Williams, http://www.sherwin-williams.com/pro/paint_colors/about_color/working_with_color/graduate/index.jsp