Layout of My Preschool Classroom

I've been doing a lot of research to figure out how to turn our playroom/reading room area into a classroom.  Since I taught Pre-K for a year before I taught Elementary School I remember how the room was set up and what centers we had to engage the children.

I understand that my entire home can be used as a "classroom" of sorts, and even my backyard as a recess area, but I really wanted to have a School Room feel in one general area.  After reading this article I learned about the 7 basic centers, which are: art, blocks, dramatic play, science, library, manipulative, and music.

I used our Reading Room Space, (we've always called this room the reading room because before we had kids we knew we wanted a room with lots of book shelves, floor space for puzzles and no t.v. so we could just have a family room to read and relax and play in together.)  Our extra room is to the right of my kitchen and was an add on by the original owners who had 3 kids.  It's a great room because while I'm cooking or cleaning I can see everything they are doing.

I will post pictures as soon as I put the final finishing touches on the whole area.  I still need a small rug for my library center and I'm thinking of purchasing some bean bags for the kids to sit on.

So far I have an Art center with table and chairs set up over a small rug near my bulletin board and calendar area.  The kids can do their Art, Blocks and Manipulatives here because I placed all their blocks, puzzles, paper, crayons, and lacing toys in crates at the bottom of the book shelf.


I also have a Dramatic Play area with our Kid's Kitchen and all the pretend food and dishes.  The crates are on the other book shelf at the bottom so they can easily reach and clean up when finished.  I'd like to add a treasure chest with dress up clothes and shoes to this area.

I have a Library Center (which I call our Book Nook) with a mini book shelf my mother in law bought Julia, two kid chairs, and two buckets of books which are the kids favorites at the time.  I still want to add a soft rug and maybe bean bags if I can find them cheap somewhere.  I researched play mats at Ikea.  Click here to see one I found for only $24.99. 

I found a cute rainbow bean bag for only $34.99...still want to see if I can find it a bit cheaper...

I would like to create a Music center but I think I can do that in our living room where our easel is where we do our Morning Meeting and Circle Time.  All I need for that is a crate for all of our CDs and Mark's mini CD player.

Our Science Center will be outside where we can play with water, bugs, sticks, dirt, our garden, etc.

I'm getting all of this in order now because after our Cape May vacation we will be doing a more scheduled school time, right now we have been doing bits and pieces of curriculum, but once we get back it's business as usual!

That's the layout of my preschool classroom so far!  We were also excited to pick up Julia's Library winnings this Tuesday at the Matawan Library.  She won the summer reading raffle this week!  We got four free books and we've been loving reading them during the day and at bed time..."We're Going on a Lion Hunt" is our favorite!

Have a great weekend!