ART CENTER

The Art Center is set up to encourage creative expression, improve hand-eye coordination, and strengthen muscles needed for pre-writing and writing. Our open-ended art supplies and art easel are readily available to children at all times and additional materials are offered during planned activities.

BLOCK CENTER

The Block Center is one of the most important and popular centers in the classroom. The skills that are practiced cover development across all areas. This includes problem-solving abilities, mathematical skills, self-expression, imagination, gross and fine motor development, social and emotional development, and more! Block building encourages cooperative play and creativity, increase attention span, and bring their ideas to life. New items are added periodically to increase interest and to enhance learning that is occurring in other areas of the classroom. 

CIRCLE TIME

Circle time is a time during the day for the children to connect with each other and myself. It encourages listening, talking, and sharing among each other.  It boosts the development of social skills by providing daily, structured social interactions. During circle time, children can practice taking turns, sharing ideas, and cooperating with others.  We engage in music, finger plays, stories, and various learning objectives.  These skills are all important to help children 
prepare for kindergarten readiness. 

DRAMATIC PLAY CENTER

The dramatic play center intentionally sets up opportunities for the kids to act out various roles that are outside their normal scope of play. Role playing creates an environment that enriches language development, social skills, conflict resolution, self-control, negotiate, organize and plan.  I rotate the theme to maintain interest and create new learning opportunities. 

OUTDOOR PLAYGROUND

Outdoor experiences can provide an opportunity to explore, discover, and appreciate the natural world, as well as be active, strengthen their fine and gross motor movement skills, test their physical limits, get messy and provide opportunities for cooperative play.  Our massive fenced in playground (1 acre), has many different surfaces for the children to play on. We have a basketball court-served as a car track, huge rolling hill of grass for all sorts of running and games. We have pea gravel and mulch, as well as a very large sand pit.  There is a wide variety of activities that the children have complete access to and all times. Our playground is truly an extension of our indoor classroom. And I am always looking for more ways to add to and or improve our playground.  In addition to our playground, season permitting, we like to take nature walks through the back nine acres. 

Wildlife Here At Woodland

We are truly blessed to be out in the wooded country. The children are able to watch and observe so much wildlife here as well. We have deer visit us daily, as well as turkey, hundreds of birds, quail, doves, little chipmunks, bunnies  and an occasional moose or two. ​

Science Center

The science center is equipped with tools and supplies, providing the opportunity for kids to take a hands-on approach in exploring the world around them. The rotating center provides the opportunity for vocabulary enrichment, enhanced observation skills, fine motor development, handwriting practice, improved problem solving skills, science and math concepts, and so much more. 
We do a lot of hands-on science experiments, while learning about cause and effect.  

LIBRARY

Our class library promotes early literacy and supports a love of reading. Children learn letter sounds, that letters represent words, print has meaning, and how to retell stories. They also learn how to appropriately turn pages and care for books. 

WRITING CENTER

In the writing center children learn to recognize and identify letters of the alphabet in print, environment and/or their own name. Children will demonstrate increased emergent writing skills such as random marks, controlled scribbles, basic shapes, letter-like marks or letters to represent words, stories, ideas, experiences or objects.

​Our writing center is a well loved area in our classroom. As the theme's change throughout the weeks/months, so does the writing center. New word cards are added to go with each theme, new stickers and colored paper all match the theme. The children have access to a wide variety of writing tools in this center. From markers, colored pencils, crayons, dry erase boards, laminated letters they can trace, alphabet ink stamps, alphabet tracing boards, magnetic letter puzzles, laminated letters with playdough, each enrolled child's name card, family name cards and much more. Pre-writing is so important during these early years. 

TABLE ACTIVITIES
with math & literacy

Our table activities are set up daily to offer individual or small group activities to focus on the development of math and literacy skills. The hands-on material rotates daily and with each theme and season to keep the children's interested and engaged during this time. The literacy activities focuses on skills related to alphabet recognition, letter sounds, letter formation, and rhyming skills.
The math activities focus on skills such as number recognition, counting one-to-one, matching a number with a quantity, more/less, sorting, patterning, identifying shapes, comparing and creating shapes, and more. During this time, the children can build their vocabulary, count, compare, order, locate, build, create, and measure. Puzzles are fun use to help children develop spatial sense concepts and skills. 

Safe Place

The Safe Place is an area in the classroom where the children can go to relieve stress, calm down and recharge their emotions. A safe space supports children's social-emotional learning by teaching the children to focus on their emotions and breathing techniques. 

​CLASSROOM TOUR