How to Use the Best Learning Centers for Preschool
Setting up learning centers in a preschool class is very important. You want to incorporate these learning centers to develop and define skills. Skills that will benefit from learning centers are social skills, academic skills, problem solving skills, and fine motor skills. The following are centers that should be in every good preschool class and what they should include.
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Instructions
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The Centers
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Set up the art center. The art center should include various art materials including markers, coloring pencils, crayons, paint, multi-purpose paper, construction paper, and colored paper. There are also other things that are great to incorporate into the art center such as glitter, pipe cleaners, play dough, and popsicle sticks. This center is great for encouraging students to use their imaginations and work on fine motor skills.
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Create the book center. This is obviously a very important center and requires a little more thought than you might think. The books you include in here should be age appropriate and include a lot of pictures. Also there must be soft, comfortable places to sit and the area should be somewhat secluded from the other centers because it needs to be quiet. This center is wonderful for encouraging students' imagination, introducing literacy skills and phonics.
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Design the kitchen center. The kitchen center is very important in every preschool class because it helps children practice using utensils and sharing skills. To set up a play kitchen, you need a kid-sized kitchen set. This should include a stove or oven, sink, and refrigerator. Include plastic food, plates, and utensils (fork, spoon) for the children to play with.
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Construct the block center. This center is great for teaching rote counting skills, spatial intelligence, and sharing skills. Make available various types of blocks including large wooden blocks, plastic blocks, Lego's, Lincoln Logs, and soft foam blocks.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure to adequately supervise children.
Double check that there are no chocking hazards in center materials.
