Hello to you! I have been teaching preschool for many years. It is one of my most favorite things to do! I have enjoyed each and every class of students whom I have had the pleasure of teaching. I used to teach preschool in my home in St. George, Utah, but we have since moved. I am excited to begin teaching preschool again in my new home. Until I have it up and running, I decided to put up this new post displaying my old preschool room to give you an idea of what I like to include in my preschool space. Check out the photos below (sorry for the poor quality:))
The above picture is the main hub of the room, the gathering area. I like to include a BIG, open rug space. We do a LOT of circle time activities and music and movement is a big part of that. A big roomy rug is a must! LOTS of learning takes place on that rug!!!
Here is the main craft and activities area. It is sort of like a little art bar. We did a lot of projects here and also ate lunch around this useful table.
I have really enjoyed incorporating lunch into our daily agenda. It takes the place of snack (which I have learned is a bit of a hassle and not always nutritious). Lunch is the perfect way to spend some down time in class. The kids feel safe bringing a piece of their home with them to school and they feel satisfied and rejuvenated after their meal. A lot of other surprising perks come along with enjoying lunch at school. I have found that picky eaters begin to broaden their food spectrum, simply by watching their peers eat different varieties of foods. Children learn table skills and the responsibility of cleaning up after themselves. Not to mention that having lunch at school is down right fun!
Here is another view of the classroom showing our second activity table. It also has seen many days of fun activities and lunches!
Just behind this table, off to the left is the entrance to the bathroom. I loved having this bathroom attached to the preschool. It was so convenient. In my new home, the bathroom is just down the hall, but I have a feeling I will miss having it RIGHT inside our preschool room.
After you leave the bathroom and step just past the table, you arrive at the reading corner.
Lots of fun reading moments took place in that corner through the years. Some I hold very near and dear. Check out this photo of my two OLDEST boys when they were first able to enjoy the space.
Yep. They are both terribly old now (11 and 9) and back then, they were the VERY reason I started this preschool gig in the first place! I wanted to be home with them so badly, but I missed teaching desperately too (I had taught first grade and kindergarten). So, I devised the scheme of building a house with this room in the basement to do a preschool. It served our family VERY well, for many years.
Can you see those two cute little tables against the back wall? That was our little listening center. It worked very well and I am happy to say, I have room for it in my new preschool! YEAH! Look how cute it is when being used:
Now on to this next angle of the room. This is the preschool entrance. I loved having this separate entrance to my preschool in St. George. I am trying to make it all happen again here in my new home. It currently has an entrance leading to the side yard of my house, I am just not sure how functional it will be with all the snow! If budget allows, we might be able to add a "mud room" type space or other covering to help make it more usable, but this is my wishful dreaming. We still need to add fencing to our yard as well and that will be a pretty penny. But hopefully. . .
The kids had a pretty great cubby system too. Each day they kept their lunch boxes and work in their cubbies. We kept their back packs in the hallway in my basement. We will do something similar in my new preschool space.
Just around the corner from the cubbies is where I kept the main "work" activities for the kids to choose. The kids started each day by choosing from these shelves. I rotated the activities each month so there were always new and exciting things to choose from. I did the same thing with the books in the book corner too. It is all about keeping it fresh, accessible and orderly.
Well, at least that is what we strive to do! I feel that children should be given the opportunity to learn to keep spaces clean and orderly. Given a place for everything, clean up time was easy, even when lots of activities were being used during play time!
That little bald headed guy in front of those shelves is my NEW inspiration for beginning a preschool here in my new town. I have such magical memories of playing and laughing with my two older boys in preschool, I want the same for him.
CLEARLY, he was not quite ready for preschool just those two short years ago. But now...
He has grown some hair (and has had one or two hair cuts) and is ready to create, explore and hang his own hand prints on the wall, just like his brothers before him! He is stoked!!!!
And frankly, I am stoked too! Just looking at these pictures gets me giddy with anticipation!! Of course, I will be doing preschool on a much smaller scale now. I will only have room for eight cute little faces. But it will be a great experience nonetheless! Here's to September and Little Star Preschool!
Thanks for stopping by and reading through this post. I hope it was helpful for you to visit my "virtual" room since my real preschool space is still "under construction." I am trying very hard to incorporate all elements of my old space into my new preschool. It will be awesome!
Also, feel free to browse through past posts about this cute little group of St. George preschoolers. It might give you some idea about my curriculum and style too.
Enjoy!
