Learning Centers

~:~ Learning Centers ~:~

Young children grow and develop in classrooms that are arranged in interest areas, also known as centers. Centers promote independence, foster decision making, and encourage involvement. The main focus in this learning environment. The main focus in this learning environment is the student.

Writing Center: Writing activities encourage development in the following areas: organization and expression of thought, fine motor control, language and the meaningfulness and utility of print.

Library / Listening Center: Encourages development in the following area: Concept formation, object labeling, peer and adult interaction, sentence structure, language, vocabulary growth, positive attitude toward reading and books.

Discovery: Encourages development in the following areas: Creative thinking, problem solving, exploration, experimentation, observation, comparison, classification, discrimination, measurement, identification of properties, language, sequencing, and record keeping.

Art: Following areas: observation, recall, fine motor skills, classification, inference, prediction, creativity, eye-hand corrdination, pincer-grasp control, emotional expression, pride, sharing, cooperation,and language.

Sand and Water: Following areas: Decision making, problem solving, autonomy, self-concepts, large and small muscle coordination, social relationships, language, imagination, and safety.

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Dramatic Play: Following areas: socialization, representation, language, sharing, cooperative decision making, coping strategies, imagination, problem solving, and small and large motor coordination.

Math: Following areas: classification, comparison, serration, measurement, graphing, counting, number concept, operations, spatial relationships, time, sets, language and problem solving.

Blocks: Following areas: creative thinking, problem solving, weight, value, gravity, position, shape depth, balance, space, size, area, there-dimensionality, symmetry, stability, matching, cause and effect relationships, serration, bridging, fractions, measurement, social relationships, and language.

[ Permission give by Lori to use text. ]

: Language Arts Centers :

These are centers that different teachers use in their classrooms. This list has been compiled from a variety of sources throughout the net, from personal experience, and from other colleagues.

Read The Room. Students read the print on the walls around the classroom. Teachers / Students label objects within the classroom that the students "read" as they walk around. Students also love to use fun and funky pointers and various eye-wear as they do their reading.

Thematic Book Boxes Teachers compile a theme-related book box and set up a reading area around that theme. For example, a fall theme might have a basket/box decorated with fall leaves, pumpkins, etc. You could have a scarecrow in your reading area, some blankets, etc. and books relating to fall concepts.

Listening Center. Put a collection of book and tapes for students to read along to. You could have students use a reading log to document the books read. You could also have students draw their favorite parts of the story, their favorite character, etc. to go along with listening to a story. You can purchase many books on tapes from Scholastic Book Clubs or you can tape yourself reading the story on a cassette tape.

Puppet Center. Stock a puppet center with various puppets and props. You can find inexpensive puppet theaters at Lillian Vernon Catalog . Students can present free play puppet shows or you can have them act out certain stories.

Write The Room. You might have children walk around the room writing the various words that they see labeled. They can write the words on special papers on clipboards using theme-related pencils for fun. The teacher could also assign certain words to look for such as, a particular beginning sound, a particular letter, etc.

Buddy Reading. Find a quiet place in the room with a partner. Partners read to each other stories.

Pocket Chart. You can put various sorts of activities here. Children could recreate a poem or song that has been learned in class from cut up sentence strips and rebus pictures. You can also have children work on cloze sentence creatings at this center. (The ____ is funny.)

Handwriting Center. You can have children do a variety of activities at this station too. They can write vocabulary words for a particular theme of study. You can write the word on a sentence strip and use clipart for a picture clue. You can add fancy paper, fancy pencils, markers, crayons, colored pencils, stencils, envelopes, stamps, and much more! You can also make handwriting books for children to practice writing in. I like to type out certain words using the dot print letters. Bind the book using your school's book-binding machine. I might make a "Food Book" and add pictures and dot-printed words for each. I then laminate the book and let the children use vis-a-vis markers to write in the books. You could make a book of student names, colors, shapes, letters, etc. The kids really enjoy this!

: Writing Centers :

These ideas are those that I have "discovered" on the internet, through webring groups, through personal experience and in various books.

Put student's names on popsicle sticks and put them in a cup. The students draw a name out of the cup and practice writing each others' names.

Put the letters of the alphabet in a basket and have them write the letters.

Write uppercase letters on a spinner. The student spins the spinner and writes the lowercase letter on a dry erase board. Use a spinner with lowercase letters and reverse the process. [ Ideas from Cecilia]

Materials For Stocking a Writing Center

various kinds of paper

adding machine tape

index cards

stamps and stamp pads

stickers

alphabet and number stamps

chalk boards with chalk

dry erase boards / dry erase markers

laminated handwriting letters/words and vis-a-vis markers

magic slates

magnetic letters

magnetic words and cookie sheets

old greeting card pictures

"junk mail" envelopes

note pads

alphabet chart

theme related self-made booklets

pencils, pens, markers, crayons, gel pens, feather pens, thematic pens

lap pads

clip boards

hole punch

small stapler

shape books

stencils

yarn for tying booklet pages together in self-made books

construction paper
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