Play Center

Presentation
Sarah Hirsch

Rationale
In

my placement classroom, I noticed that my

students and case study child were beginning
to make their own experiments. Because of
these observations, I wanted to create a
science center in my classroom. I wanted to do
this to allow the students to learn how to form
hypothesises and see if their predictions come
true or not. I also wanted to start to introduce
the vocabulary terms that go with the actions
that they may be doing by themselves already.

Description and Layout

My rain center was

set up at a table.
The materials were
already set up for
them. They had a
prop of a sign in
sheet and there were
also vocabulary
words present to
interact with.

Description and Layout

My

catapult center was a mobile center.

The smaller materials were provided on
a shelf in a basket for the students to
explore freely. The large catapult
materials were available on our large
carpet area. There were also the props
of the vocabulary words.

Introduction to Center
I

introduced this center starting with

some background information through
the reading of Monsoon from the India
Story Box. The day that the centers
were put out for exploration, I had a
discussion with the students about a
new opportunity for them to play with. I
answered any questions they had in this
discussion as well.

Literacy in Play
My

students were incorporating literacy

in their play through the action of
signing in as part of their play. Their
expressive vocabulary and discussions
that they had throughout the centers is
also a way that they were using literacy
in their play.

Global Thinking

I had some of my students discuss that they

had a monsoon in their cup during the rain
center. They were connecting this word that
they had heard from the book Monsoon to
what they were experiencing in the
classroom. After this discussion, Cleo turned
to me and told me that it had rained at her
house a while ago and that it was like the one
in the story. This shows how she is relating to
India by making a global to local connection.

Case Study Child

Through this play center, I learned that my

case study child enjoyed the more physical
aspect of my play center through the large
catapults. I also learned that she was
highly competitive during a game that
some of the students were playing to see
who could launch a snowball the furthest. I
also learned that she knew a lot about
what certain colors to mix to make other
colors.

Strengths
A

strength of my center was the mobile

aspect to one part of it. The freedom of
exploration was another strength that
seemed to keep my students attention
for long periods. Another strength was
the ability to physically experience what
the vocabulary words meant in the
centers.

Unforeseen Issues
I didnt foresee the problem of not
having enough room for the large
catapults. I would like to make this an
outside center after noticing this.
I didnt expect our students to want to take
their rain cloud cups home. Luckily we were
able to solve this problem through the finding
of small condiment cups with lids.
The eye droppers become clogged if the
students dip them in the shaving cream.
I wish I had implemented more literacy in my
center by using all of the tools I had in my
disposal in the classroom.

Its gonna rain! It just started

moving!