Determine the number of centers you need and the subjects children will learn in them. Plan the features of the centers, keeping in mind the size of your classroom and the age of your children. If you are teaching a 2-year-old class, plan for a pretend center to foster dramatic play and a reading center to encourage a love of books. Set up a block center and a toy center. Include an art center.
For 3-year-olds, add a science center and computer center to the room as well. Four- and 5-year-old preschoolers benefit from the addition of a writing center and a math center.
Place the art center closest to your classroom sink. The block center and toy centers should be farthest from the classroom door so children have room to build and play without the danger of the door knocking into them. Place the book center in a cozy nook, farthest from the noisier centers. A pretend center requires the most physical space, so carve out the largest portion of the room for it. Position the pretend center along a windowless and doorless wall so there are few distractions to the children. Science centers work best by a window. Place the computer, math and writing centers near the reading center.
Think outside the teacher supply store when deciding what items to place in your classroom centers. Rifle through thrift-store racks for clothing and accessories to fill the dress-up basket. Save cardboard food boxes, stuffed with newspaper and taped shut to stock the pretend kitchen. Add stuffed animals and soft pillows to the reading center. Place clean yogurt containers, shoe boxes and pieces of cardboard in the block center. Bring in seasonal items from nature to place on the science table.
Check the thrift store again for age-appropriate educational computer games for the computer center. Place colored writing paper, envelopes and stickers to use as postage stamps, in the writing center. Buy various shapes of pasta and dry cereals. Let preschoolers sort and graph pasta shapes or create repeating patterns from rows of fruit cereal rings in the math center.
Periodically, create a special center on a classroom table. Set up a seasonal or holiday-themed center. Make a special center to enrich a thematic lesson. Place red items on the table and call it the red center, when the color of the week is red. Create an ocean center during your classroom study of oceans. Fill the table with ocean-themed books, sea shells and toy sea creatures. Place a shallow box of sand and child-size toy shovels on the table.