Creating Learning Centers in Early Childhood Classrooms
A learning center is
usually defined as an area in a child care or school where children go to small
groups to focus their attention on a specific kind of play activity. A good
learning center should be a learning experience. The teacher should create each
center with a certain goal in mind, and when that goal is met, those centers
will be successful.
Learning
centers should constantly be changing because they are incorporating lesson
plans from the teacher. Having
successful learning centers will require that teachers be creative.
A
teacher should have a thorough knowledge of child development and learning in
order to be able to understand the characteristics of children within the given
age groups. Teachers must be able to
determine what activities, materials, interactions, and experiences will be
safe, healthy, appropriate (age, individual, and sociocultural) and challenging
for the age group that they will be working with. For more on the subject, take the continuing
education course: Early Childhood Growth
and Development.
Why
learning centers:
Learning
centers help with better classroom management and better overall achievement.
With learning centers students begin to see how they learn best and it promotes
physical activity which helps with overall mood.
Children
have various learning styles:
Our
goal is to make the classroom environment reflect the different learning styles
of the children/students in the group.
Before
we get into what the learning centers should look like, let’s go over some
basic housekeeping and groundwork to keep in mind in order to help make the
center experience smooth and pleasant for everyone involved.
what the center is about. Non-reading children could become discouraged and distracted from the confusion of the words they can't interpret.
Responsibility:
Using learning centers is a good way to teach children to take care of things and
people. The teacher should instruct children to clean the area when they are
done so that other children can enjoy the center also.
Peak
their interest: Good learning centers never get boring. Introduce
the center and explain something interesting about each center before children
make their choices. Have enough areas
for children to choose from, make changes and add new item but not too often. Limit the time for each center area so there's
no time to get bored. Don’t make the time too short so that the children do not
have enough time to complete their exploration.
Start setting up your learning centers today. To get help with materials and ideas, visit: The Learning Center Shop.
To take the 3 hour continuing education course, visit Networx LLC's website.
Tina Oliver, M.Ed.
Training and Development Specialist
Networx LLC
www.networxllc.net
Tina Oliver, M.Ed.
Training and Development Specialist
Networx LLC
www.networxllc.net
