What If Your Child Only Wants to Play in One Center?

A parent asked me if they should be worried because their child spends a lot of time in a certain center.  Which got me thinking, maybe I should explain a little about how our centers work. 

Each of our centers is it's own little subject, which overlaps nicely with all the other centers.  For example, our science center is all about science and sensory experiences, but we have apple pie play dough there right now, which is directly related to our Apple Project, and playing with this play dough develops the muscles that will help your child write.  There are many things to sketch and write about in the science center, as well as tools that scientists use.

Each center has books related to that center.  Our block center has many books about building and vehicles and other related topics.  The art center has a basket of art books, some are picture books, some are informational.  And so on.

Each center also has writing materials.  We try very hard to encourage children to plan what they are going to do or build or create or work on, as well as representing what they see.  They love to make lists, write notes, write their friends names, write what they are eating, write labels, etc. in all the centers. 

So, if your child only seems to want to play with the blocks, just know that they are learning negotiation skills, planning what they want to build, cooperating with other children there, learning math skills (studies show that playing with blocks improves later math performance in children), learning about balance and shapes, language development, and so many other things I can't even list them all. 

I'm okay with that.
 

 



We started on our first project this week--WE ARE LEARNING ABOUT APPLES!!  The reason we do an apple project every year at this time is because children are all familiar with apples in some form, and it gives them an idea of the way we will be working this year. 

 

 

First , we made a chart of what we know about them (written in green).  As we learn new information, we add it in red so we can see what we have actually learned. 

 



 

 

We learned to say apple in all the languages in our classroom.  We practice with the help of the children who actually speak those languages, as I'm sure we have interesting accents. :)

 

We have lots of vocabulary cards and photos of real apples and orchards, as well as LOTS of books about apples.

 

 

Have you ever made apple pie play dough?  We have.  It smells amazing.

 

 

 

We made a class book based on Dr. Seuss' book "Ten Apples Up On Top".  Ours is called "How Many Apples Up on Top?" and features some of our favorite people....

 

 

Apple art is always fun and interesting...

 

Apple Rolling--children squirt their own paint into a bin on top of paper, add apples and roll all over the place.  Gorgeous!

 

 



Apple Prints--children dip apple slices into paint and press onto paper. 

 

Apple Colored Paint Spinning--we used apple colored paint in a salad spinner, the kids used their muscles to spin, then like magic we made these beautiful paintings!



 

 

We did an apple taste test with four different kinds of apples, then made a chart of our favorites.  Yummy.

 

 

A little fine motor practice as well as counting, sorting, and addition....

 

How many apples tall are you?

 

And of course, some consulting under the table is always a good thing.  Don't you wish you knew what they were discussing?  I know I do.

 

 



Settling in to the New Year...

So, the children are settling in and getting really comfortable with us, and coming out of their shells a little bit.  We are loving it!  They say such funny things and it's interesting to see their little personalities shine through. 

I don't have any pictures, I kind of slacked last week and the pictures I did take weren't very clear, so I'm trying to do better this week. 

It has been brought to my attention that I could do better about blogging for a broader audience.  Meaning other educators, administrators, etc. Our school (and our classroom specifically) is a model for how early education should look, so I should be sharing the information others need to emulate it.  These are some topics that I get a lot of questions about.

Writing--We do not write or draw or provide coloring pages for children in our school, except to take dictation, because we want them to understand that their words and drawings are important.  If I draw an apple for a child, then I can just about guarantee that any apple they draw will look VERY close to mine.  If they draw their own apple, it might look very different, but the details that are impactful for them will be there.  They may not be organized the way we would organize them but they will be there.  Then add their own words about what they drew, and they can see that their writing is important.  Please note that we do have a lot of college student volunteers who mean well, but don't understand this yet.  It's a process.  And a lot of explaining.

Process Art--Our artwork is about the process and not the product.  Art is about the experience and not making an apple that looks like all the other apples out there.  What if I want my apple to be blue (think of Picasso's blue period)?  That would be fine in our classroom.  What if I don't want to draw an apple?  That would be fine too (generally, we don't ask them to draw or paint any particular thing, anyway).  What this means is that you will get lots of gorgeous art from your children this year, but it may or may not look like anything.  It's okay.

Preparing children for kindergarten--DON'T WORRY.  Your child will be ready for kindergarten.  However, we are preparing them for LIFE.  We want all of these little people to be able to solve any problem they come across.   We're going to provide support for that now, and later they are going to be confident enough to do it for themselves.  We all know adults who cannot do this, so how wonderful would it be if everyone could learn this in preschool? 

This is my plan for world peace. 

Inside the Classroom, and Outside the Classroom...

This week we did some early documentation with our class.  We got name-writing samples from each of them, they made a self-portrait, took their own selfies, the children started signing in as well as their parents, and we talked about their favorite things, which we are compiling into a class book (coming soon!).  Why would we do all these things?  Are they "assessments"?  Are they tests?  Are we comparing your children's abilities to everyone else's?

NO!  We want to have documentation so that at the end of the year, you can see exactly how far your child has progressed.  Imagine comparing your child's self-portrait from the beginning of the year to the one they will do at the end.  It will AMAZE you.  The only comparing we will do is your child's work over time.  That's all the comparing I hope you will do too. 

So what did we DO this week?  Lots of things....we went on a Bear Hunt together.  (Please note that if children choose not to participate, it's okay with us.  Some children need to watch and make sure things are okay to do for them--we're good with that)

 

 

We read about a million stories.  Which we love to do.

 

 

We built with translucent blocks on the light table--very hard to photograph.

 

We played in the water table.  I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH... If your child is having a hard time, fill up the sink, pull up a chair for  them to stand on and dump some plastic utensils into the sink.  Done.

 

 

Each week, our class has a gardening lesson.  This week we walked around the garden and identified the things that are growing there right now.  We saw watermelon, papaya, banana trees, a lime tree, eggplant, a big weird squash, and we tasted some Muscadine grapes right off the vine. 

 

 

We also ate some sunflower seeds that were still soft.  Did you know you could eat them like that?

 

The other part of our lesson was learning about the plant life cycle which we did by telling a story similar to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by   It was called Sunshine, Sunshine, What Do You See?  and it had felt board pieces that we all got to add to the story board.

 

After that, we ate a watermelon from the garden and saved the seeds to plant next summer.  I'd say that was a great day in the garden!





 All in all, we had a great week.