centers

  • Printables for St. Patrick’s Day

    Can you believe that it’s the middle of March already?! I am completely fine with that, bring on spring! But this also means that St. Patrick’s day is right around the corner – Friday to be exact. St. Patrick’s day is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate in the classroom. This is partiall because it means that we’ve turned the corner and spring is almost here – I am all about celebrating everything turning green! I also love this holiday because it’s magical and whimsical and mischievous, and I fully believe that children need the opportunity to enjoy these special days while they are still little. If you haven’t…

  • Baby Doll Dramatic Play

    When we get to the middle of winter, the last thing that I want to do is pull out the same dramatic play materials that we’ve been using all year.  That means I have to get a little more resourceful to make my dramatic play centers interesting. Now you can definitely buy some amazing printables and supplies at the Dollar Tree to add to your dramatic play area, and I’ve done that too, but I’m talking about using what you’ve already got.  Baby dolls were always popular in my classroom, and I tried not to keep them out all of the time so that it was special when they were…

  • My Favorite Halloween Activity

    I can’t let Halloween fly by without sharing my all-time favorite Halloween activity! This Jack-o-Lantern shape set can be used in so many different ways, so it is easy to use with children of varying ages and abilities. Children can use the shapes to make any face they wish, or they can recreate the inspiration cards by recognizing the shapes that have been used, finding them, and placing them in the proper locations on the Jack-o-Lantern. The set also includes matching cards, which children can use to play memory, or to match to the larger Jack-o-Lantern inspiration cards. Finally, there are “find me” cards.  Children can work together to find…

  • An Easy Fall Science Center

    Fall is the perfect time of year to explore science – there are so many changes happening! It’s also really easy to find natural materials to use in the classroom (check out this list and this list for ideas), but sometimes I struggle with how to contain all of those natural materials.  No more worries, I’ve found the perfect solution: How awesome are these leaf-shaped containers from Oriental Trading (of course) ?! I filled mine with tree bark, grass, pebbles, twigs, some small red leaves, and one larger green leaf. The best thing about this set is that it includes 24 containers, so your students could help you find all…

  • New Stuff!

    I just finished putting together two new resources for the classroom and I LOVE them! I’ve been working on these for a while and I am so excited to share them with you because they are going to add value to your classroom centers! One thing that I’ve always struggled with are the wanderers – those children who have a really hard time choosing an activity, so they just kind of wander around. I also have a hard time helping children who don’t understand how to play all by themselves, you know, the kids who need to be told what to do and when to do it.  I designed these…

  • Planning your classroom layout

    If you’ve spent any amount of time teaching young children there’s a good chance you’ve also spent a little time drooling over a classroom supply catalog.  It’s a lot like pouring over the toy ads at Christmas time when you were a little kid. You know there is no way that you’ll get all of the wonderful things that you see on those glossy pages, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dream! I just found a tool from Kaplan that I could spend days playing with. It’s called My Kaplan Floor Planner.  You enter the dimensions of your classroom, and then you can create floor plans using items from the…

  • Explaining Classroom Centers

    As preschool teachers we spend a lot of time defending the importance of play.  We know exactly how much learning is taking place in our activity centers during “free play” because we designed them specifically to encourage learning, social interaction, and inquiry.  Parents and family members don’t always understand that. I designed these labels to identify the different types of learning that takes place in each center.  Display them in a photo frame or attach them right to your shelf and parents can rad the brief description while waiting for their children to finish up their work. I wanted to share them with you, so I designed them in two…

  • Autumn manipulatives for the preschool room

    Autumn is my favorite time of year to use seasonal manipulatives because there are so many different options.  The items on the list below are great for math games, patterning, sensory tables, tactile language activities, the block area, and fine motor exercises. Some autumn manipulatives you can include in your activities and center include: Leaves Acorns Miniature pumpkins Soy beans Corn kernels Popcorn Sunflower seeds Candy corn Pumpkin seeds Seasonal confetti Seed pods Orange, yellow, and brown gems Apples Apple seeds Pinecones I’d love to know how you use some of these items in your classroom, share your ideas in the comments!

  • Great autumn activities for centers

    Autumn is a great season to explore in the classroom because there are so many natural materials the you can bring into your environment.  This also means that it is really important to have other materials in your centers that are related to those natural materials.  Here are some of my favorite autumn centers; Autumn vocabulary cards– These are great for reinforcing the new vocabulary words that students are learning.  This set includes the words acorn, apple, leaf, corn, leaves, pumpkin, tree, orchard, squirrel, and turkey and are wonderful for a writing center. Acorn matching set – This set includes letter matching, number matching, and color matching, making it easy for…

  • Ideas for classroom centers

    Are you setting up your activity centers and interest areas for a new group of kiddos? Here are some great ideas from previous posts; Reggio Inspired Dramatic Play Centers Reggio Inspired Science Centers Reggio Inspired Writing Centers Reggio Inspired Math Centers For more great ideas, check out my Preschool Pin Boards!