Skip to main content

Centers

It is hard to fit everything in to a two and a half hour school day so I use centers to help cover material during play. I schedule centers into our school day three times a week. There are a variety of centers that I rotate through and many, many activities that each center can entail. Here's the list of centers that I use but there are others that could work better in other classrooms.
*Art Center (includes crafting, drawing, painting, coloring, stamping)
*Block Center (includes building with different types of blocks)
*Dramatic Play Center (includes home living, dress-up, vet's office, floral shop, bakery)
*Fine Motor Center/Sensory Center (includes water play, rice or sand play, playdough, tracing, beading, cutting, name practice)
*Literacy Center (includes letter matching, letter tracing, literacy games, sound matching, rhyming)
*Math Center (includes number practice, counting, math games)
*Reading Center (includes reading, looking at and enjoying books)
*Science Center (includes investigating and using tools and STEAM boxes)
*Writing Center (includes journals)
I space each center out around the room and each center only holds two or three students at a time.  Some weeks, I assign the centers and other weeks I allow the students to choose. I schedule my centers during the last fifteen to twenty minutes of our day. My students typically love and look forward to centers.
 Counting Stews are often part of our Math Center.
 STEAM boxes are at the Science Center.
 Counting Games are part of the Math Center.
 Tangrams and pattern blocks can be either Math Center or Block Center activities.
 Finding items to sort are sometimes part of our Fine Motor/Sensory Center.
 Hole punching fun can take place at the Fine Motor/Sensory Center and then the finished pieces can be used at the Art Center.
 Letter matching games belong in the Literacy Center.
 Building letters with Legos or other tools can be in the Literacy Center or the Fine Motor/Sensory Center.
 Letter finding, identifying and matching activities belong in the Literacy Center.
 At times, the Science Center has magnets, magnifying lenses and scales.
 The Writing Center contains our journals, crayons, pencils, and markers.
 Playdough and beads are fun at the Fine Motor/Sensory Center.
 Some Art Center activities happen at a table with lots of pieces and cutting or gluing.
 Number matching games belong in the Math Center.
 Other Art Center activities happen at the easel to allow for working on vertical surfaces.
 STEAM boxes can also work in the Fine Motor/Sensory Center.
 Reading tents, pillows, and stuffed animals fill our Reading Center.
There are different varieties of blocks at the Block Center and sometimes additional items are added such as pictures of building challenges or animals.

Our Sensory Table is at the Fine Motor/Sensory Center. It can hold different materials such as water, rice, shredded paper, sand, pool noodle slices, or Easter grass.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nursery Rhyme Theme

 A few years ago when I pulled out Nursery Rhymes to read to my class, I discovered many of them had never heard these stories before.  I grew up on Nursery Rhymes so this was interesting to see. We dove into a unit of Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales and they loved it! This is also a great unit to really focus on rhyming with the children. Blocks, pool noodles, and cups can be used in STEAM challenges to build castles and towers. Straw, sticks, and rocks can also be added to use in building houses when you read "The Three Little Pigs."  We create our own Nursery Rhyme book where the children illustrate the rhymes and then get to take their books home to share.  The students love collecting the pigs and returning them to their pens. We use pink balloons and hula hoops.  We also try to be as nimble and quick as Jack and jump over our own candlesticks.  "The Three Little Kittens" lost their mittens but we play a matching game with ours. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pumpkin Theme

 Every October we learn about pumpkins. Mini pumpkins are brought into the Science Center for every child and we investigate them with magnifying lenses and our senses. We also cut the top off of a large pumpkin and scoop the seeds out to investigate as well.  I allow every child who is interested, a turn scooping seeds out. I never require the students to help if they are not interested.  In the Literacy Center, we use mini pumpkin erasers to trace around letters. Pumpkin stickers can also be used.  We take a field trip to a local pumpkin patch where every child is allowed to pick a pumpkin to take home.  In the Fine Motor/Sensory Center, we make pumpkin pie with orange playdough and rolling pins.  We also count and make patterns in the Math Center with pumpkin erasers or manipulatives. In the Pumpkin STEAM box, I include mini pumpkins, leaves, acorns, magnifying lenses and orange slices of pool noodles that the children can play and e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Christmas Theme

There are so many Christmas ideas and activities to choose from and I have tried many but in this post, I will include many of the ones that have worked well in our classroom. This candy cane fishing game is challenging but the children enjoy it and it's great for teaching balance, fine motor skills and concentration. I tie a single candy cane to a dowel rod and then place the remaining candy canes in a jar so they are standing up. Students use the candy cane fishing rod and try to collect as many candy canes as they can.  A great STEAM activity is to lay out green Legos and green popsicle sticks and give the students a challenge to create a tree.  Another fine motor activity is to place Velcro dots both on a Christmas tree and also on the back of several buttons. Students place the buttons on the tree as ornaments and then take the buttons off. I make large green triangle trees and then divide them into eight strips, writing a numeral 1-8 on each strip.  St...
Post a Comment
Read more