• Telephone

    (210) 344-3472
  • Office Hours

    8:00am - 4:00pm
  • Our Address

    222 Salem Dr, San Antonio, TX 78201

Learning Centers

Inviting, engaging learning centers encourage children to interact with materials and peers, to make choices, move freely and independently throughout the classroom, attempt new skills, challenge, or reinforce their learning. Center activities draw children to areas that they might not have chosen otherwise or allow them to revisit their favorite activities. They give children opportunities to learn individually or in small groups, while allowing the teacher to take advantage of moments of readiness, keen interest, and desire.

The focus of the learning centers and their materials change throughout the month based on the unit of study and the individual needs of the class. Throughout the day, children are immersed in learning through meaningful play experiences that honor individual learning styles. The shy child may choose a quiet activity with a Teacher, while another child may join a group of children involved in dramatic play. A child with an interest in art may choose to start their day in that area, whereas another child might enjoy reading in the library center. With time and encouragement, every child soon comes to enjoy all of the available centers and activities.

The following list is the minimum type of centers in each classroom.

ART

Art activities vary on a daily or weekly basis and are often topic related. Throughout the year children will experience drawing, painting, sculpting, working with clay, textiles, and recycled materials. Some projects are teacher directed, but there is ample opportunity for creativity and experimentation. The Art Center includes the easel and free art area with crayons, markers, pencils, glue, scissors, scrap paper and collage materials. By experimenting with a variety of media and techniques, a child develops imaginative thinking, creative expression, fine motor, and discriminatory skills in addition to building an appreciation for their own work and that of their peers. Art activities help children creatively express their thoughts and feelings and reinforce fine-motor skills and concept development.

BLOCKS

Included in this center may be wooden, bristle, magnetic, foam or cardboard blocks. Block Play is an important part of all rooms, where the child learns mathematical concepts of size, weight, symmetry, cause and effect as well as the social skills in the give and take of cooperative play. Various props that relate to the theme being studied, writing or sketching materials, or printed resources (blueprints, architectural photos) may be added periodically. Even the task of putting blocks away provides experience with visual discrimination, sorting, organizing, and taking responsibility for our classroom.

DRAMATIC PLAY

Dramatic Play includes dress-up clothes, furniture, household equipment and appliances, dolls, and props. Materials reflect our cultural diversity. The “housekeeping” center can easily be changed into a grocery store, office, space station, cave, tropical rainforest, or Physician’s office where the child can enact familiar or fantasy situations. Children are given freedom to assume traditional and non-traditional roles, use language, and negotiate the dynamics of their play. Dramatic Play fosters role-playing, practicing life-skills, improves social skills, increases self-esteem, builds vocabulary; encourages cooperation, imagination, self-expression, and problem solving among peers.

LITERACY

The Literacy Center may include various writing tools (pens, pencils, markers, paper, notepads, stencils, letter stamps), phonemic awareness materials (letter games, rhyming words, class books), and other activities that develop writing, language, and reading readiness skills. Activities may introduce, reinforce, or enhance letter recognition, letter/sound identification, upper/lower case formation, creative writing, proper handwriting mechanics or environmental print. While at the Literacy Center, a child might assemble an alphabet puzzle, create a letter page, sort objects by initial sound, compose a story, match upper- and lower-case letters, create a class book, record information, copy shapes, letters, or words. In the early years, the focus is on identifying and discriminating sounds, making letter/sound association and distinguishing letters in isolation. Once basic skills are mastered, literacy activities move from inventive to more traditional spelling, sight words, word families, the mechanics of punctuation, capitalization and sentence formation, elements of story writing, and incorporating leveled readers.

MANIPULATIVES

Working with puzzles, lotto games, peg boards, stringing beads, magnets, sorting toys and Legos, a child develops the eye-hand coordination, manipulative, fine motor, and visual discrimination skills that are critical for reading, writing and math readiness. Activities help improve small-muscle development and eye-hand coordination. By manipulating materials in this center, a child also increases reasoning, problem solving, and decision-making skills while strengthening motor planning and abstract thinking capabilities.

MATH

By interacting with Math based manipulatives, games and materials that are available throughout the room and reinforced throughout the day, children explore sorting, seriation, measurement, classification, geometric shapes, 1:1 correspondence, numeral recognition, time, money, graphing and other mathematical concepts. These early experiences create number sense, build an understanding of number relationships, and develop mathematical vocabulary. Math activities may include folder games targeting a specific skill or concept, board games, puzzles, or pencil and paper tasks. Children create graphs, lists, and charts; use objects to create sets, Venn diagrams, or to form math sentences; use standard and non-standard units of measurement and use 1:1 correspondence as they help set out snack, take roll, or count to 100. Mathematical understanding is built upon extensive work with concrete materials, pictorial representation, and abstract reasoning.

MUSIC

This area allows children to develop creative expression, sound discrimination and an appreciation for different kinds of music. A variety of musical and rhythm instruments are available, as well as a CD player and a diverse selection of music. Children can experience rhythms, beats, musical tones and singing from around the world, or create their own “song.” The Music Center strengthens auditory discrimination, fosters creative expression through music and movement, encourages large and small muscle coordination, and taps into a child’s innate love of music, rhythm, movement, and song.

READING CORNER AND LISTENING CENTER

Cozy, quiet settings with pillows, carpet or child-sized rocking chairs are provided where the child experiences not only daily story time, but may choose to spend individual, small group or 1:1 time with a Teacher quietly “reading” or listening to recordings. The Reading Center encourages an interest in, and respect for, literature, strengthens visual perception and reinforces reading readiness skills. Flannel boards and puppets are often included for creative story telling. The children increase language skills, gain appreciation for books, build vocabulary, expand their knowledge base, develop listening skills, and increase their attention span.

SAND / WATER / SENSORY TABLE

To pour and measure, touch and squish, fill and dump, dig and tunnel are important to the development of a child’s sensory awareness. Using measuring cups, scoops, funnels, sand/water wheels, pumps, eggbeaters, molds and other manipulatives, children gain an understanding of basic scientific and mathematical concepts. Activities allow children to experiment with textures and properties of different substances. In addition to sand and water, sensory tubs might incorporate seeds, ice, “goop,” flour, colored rice, feathers, deer corn, balls, pom poms, paper for cutting practice, soil and magnifying glasses, jelly spheres, or other materials.

SCIENCE

The Science table provides an opportunity to observe nature (plants, insects, rocks, shells, bird nests, etc.), and work with scientific tools such as magnifying glasses, prisms, magnets, scales, and weights. With these materials, the child begins to form scientific and mathematical concepts and may engage in simple experimentation. Activities provided in the Science Area develop sensory awareness, enhance a child’s natural curiosity, and encourage observation and discriminatory skills. Most classrooms also have a classroom “pet” (reptile or fish) and live plants which foster care-taking skills, respect for nature and caring for our environment.

WOODWORKING

In the Woodworking Center, children have a chance to work with some of the tools they may see being used in the “real world.” The Center may include child-sized safety goggles, hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, a pounding block for nails, nuts and bolts, tool belt, level and measuring tape. The use of tools helps them develop problem solving and design skills, hone their fine and gross motor skills, increase eye/hand coordination, and explore mathematical and scientific concepts while learning about the proper use of, and safety guidelines for, simple tools.

QUIET CENTER

Each classroom has a specified area for children to go to when they need time to calm down, take a break, or self-regulate. The Quiet Center is not punitive; children are invited to freely seek it out when they are upset. While it is easily observable to Teachers, it provides the child privacy, reduces sensory stimuli, and nurtures self-regulation through calming materials and soothing surfaces.