Centers

During center time, children have many opportunities to explore and create. The teacher works with small groups and individual children to provide for individual needs.

Dramatic Play Center

Oral language is an important component of literacy.  These children are developing oral language as they create their own dramatizations.  Children also develop social awareness in this center.

Discovery Center

In the discovery center, children engage in observations and active science.  These children are mixing colors.  As they add water to the colors, they are able to manipulate how light and how dark the color becomes. 

In block center, children engage their minds in many things.  They explore physics as they build towers and make them stand.  They also have opportunities to role play with one another as they grow socially.

Many books and other pieces of information are created in the publishing center.  This center has materials children can use to create their own works and publish them.

These children are exploring movement as they create buildings and elaborate models of gears that they can make move.

These children are playing a math game.  As they play, they are counting, using one-to-one correspondence, and negotiating as they work with one another to play by the rules of the game.  Other math games build skills arranging from recognizing more and less to strategizing to multiplication and division.

This child is reading to her imaginary class!  Children role play as well as practicing important reading skills when they spend time in big book center.

In this center, children can use a variety of manipulatives to make words and build sentences.  This child is writing his name on a magnetic board.

In listening center, children can choose to listen to books by themselves or with a friend.  The model of fluent, expressive reading they hear helps them build knowledge of what a good reader sounds like.

Children who participate in computer center have a spectrum of choices in what they play.  They get to play games that cover subject areas such as reading, math, geography, and technology.  This child is playing a game that reinforces good typing skills.

Children can role play and show their artistic sides in this center.  Play-doh is also very useful in helping children build fine motor skills needed for writing.

Children can create works of art using different types of paint in this center.

Art center is a place where children can express themselves through several mediums.  There are a variety of materials in the art center for children to use.

Each day, children have job centers that they must complete in our classroom.  The teacher uses this time to work with children in small groups and one-on-one to provide for individual needs.  Some of our job centers include math journal entries, project or fact book entries, and construction projects.