PRE-SCHOOL DAY

CENTER TIME

Young children learn best when they are actively engaged with

interesting materials and learning partners, so our center time is

the longest block of time in the daily routine. If you have watched

a child busy at play, you have doubtless been struck by the

energy, enjoyment, and intense concentration you saw there.

Serious players are explorers, dreamers, scientists, and storytellers.

Constructive social play allows each child to enter experiences at her own level of ability. Age-mates stimulate cooperation and the elaboration of ideas. Teachers interact to extend or apply an idea or model techniques to enable success.

Child-choice makes perseverance probable, even when challenges arise. Persistence, focused interest, excitement, and the satisfaction of a job well done are examples of attitudes nurtured through play and rewarded throughout our lives. Early childhood educators are certain of the immense value of self-selected play. They are also used to this being an “undervalued” activity.

Center time is filled with imaginative and constructive play. Centers are chosen and equipped by the teachers to provide an array of learning experiences. Each center is stocked with materials to spark interest, expand awareness and offer opportunities to explore “things,” ideas, roles, relationships, physical properties, and more. Each child chooses and invests himself in a center or series of centers –using his own initiative to move and work freely, exploring areas of interest and growing in areas of need.

Here are some of the centers available:

During center time, teachers are also active learners -interacting with the working children, watching and listening for opportunities to teach and support what is being learned. They may ask a leading question to help a child verbalize an emerging understanding, or extend an experience by supplying needed information or materials. When children reach an impasse the teacher may help children clarify choices, articulate emotions. Reluctant or “disengaged” children are helped to become involved. Our supply closet is full of wonderful equipment and materials. Something can always be found to capture a child’s interest and entice her into a positive learning mode.

Alone or in the company of other children, new and old ideas are “field tested,” compared, reviewed, and refined. Skills are utilized, and self-esteem is enhanced. Children at this age are just beginning to plan, monitor and evaluate their own thinking. These are HUGE life skills. Watch closely, listen carefully, and be amazed!

Two art areas are among the choices available daily. They offer experiences with crayons, markers, scissors, glue, 101 varieties of painting and printing, clay, play dough, and more. Children can conceptualize and draw what they know long before they can write it. The challenges and rewards inherent in creating and constructing with materials make creative art central to many themes and projects.

The cafeteria of learning opportunities available in each

day promotes the “Key Developmental Indicators” (KDI)

of the High-Scope Curriculum. The KDI’s guide planning

for developmentally appropriate activities that offer

opportunities for taking initiative, and for growing in social

relations, creative representation, music and movement,

language and literacy, logic and mathematics.

There’s lots of chatter during center time – what better way

to enlarge vocabularies, improve articulation and communication skills, and to practice emerging social skills. The tone is one of delight. Play is a child’s work, and it’s work he loves to do.