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Helpful Hints: Creating Interest Areas
Setting up interest areas with in the classroom is important for
the making of a classroom that promotes the growth and development for a child.
Here are areas that are typically in an early childhood classroom:
• Blocks (unit blocks, people and transportation)
• Dramatic Play (kitchen set, dress-up clothes & dolls)
• Fine Motor or Manipulative (tables, puzzles, pegs & beads)
• Art (easels, paint, crayons & paper)
• Sand & Water (sand and water table, funnels, measuring cups & sponges)
• Library (book display, books & soft cushions)
• Music and Movement (dance/prop storage, musical instruments/players)
• Storage for Personal Belongings (lockers, storage bins, etc.)
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Helpful Hints:
Boys Do Not Play with Baby Dolls, Girls Do Not Play with Blocks
I was asked to assist a teacher in finding furniture for a dramatic play area that was less gender specific to "girl play".
Though caring & nurturing a family has, in the past, primarily been a female function, children do not see furniture, dolls, materials, toys, etc.,
as stereotypical until an adult introduces the idea. Rather than embracing our differences, we as adults are encouraging to judge them.
Who says that only girls can play with kitchen sets and dolls while boys can only play with blocks and dump trucks?
When we see children playing they are doing much more than cooking, building houses out of blocks, or caring for a pretend family:
Discovery of Self and Others
Social-dramatic play is a higher level of play that incorporates verbal interactions with at least one other person.
When in the dramatic play area a child can learn more about themselves, their families, their environment and society.
Children are also able to use the pretend play as an opportunity to safely reenact actual events in their lives
that might be fearful as a means to deal with the situation at hand. For instance if a child has an up coming doctor's
visit that they are fearful of, acting out the situation might help them realize that the visit is not going to be as bad as
their brain is allowing them to believe. Through social-dramatic play interactions children begin to ask and answer questions
and in turn discover more about their peers and the differences within family cultures.
Intellectual Development
By asking questions children are able determine "the next action needed" to solve and/or work through problems.
With this input of personal ideas the children learn how to stay on tasks for longer periods of time,
which in turn increases the child's ability to concentrate. Engaging in dramatic play, children are able to collect
and draw upon their previous experiences. They learn to judge and select relevant information in order to enact play.
This is an essential skill for intellectual develop.
A young boy cooking, cleaning or holding a doll is building on his social-emotional skills so that later in life
he will be as comfortable making decisions at home as he would be in a Fortune 500 company.
As well as, a young girl who hammers wooden blocks, plays with trucks or digs in the dirt,
is preparing herself to build strong family relationships or design engineering marvels which will change how we live.
Our children should be permitted to learn about life without limiting their development, vision or imagination.
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The aforementioned are professional opinions. All of these are the sole property of WDM, Inc.
Any use of the contents, above statements, or ideas requires the written permission of WDM, Inc. Violators will be prosecuted.
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Helpful Hint of the Month...
Big Book Holder
The Big Book Holder (WD34600)
gives both teachers and children easy access to
the big books needed to
encourage literacy within the classroom.
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Shown above:
WD34600 Big Book Holder
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Check us out in this article on the web...
The Ultimate Early Ed Blueprint
Creating an ideal early childhood education space in your school district is a no-brainer,
once you understand how to see and think like a tot.
By Julie Sturgeon, DistrictAdministration.com, May 2004
http://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=734
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Teacher Resources: Helpful Hints Archive
Our past Helpful Hints articles, organized & archived
for your convenience in setting-up your own classroom.
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Enhance interest areas by providing enough shelving & storage bins
for the amount of materials provided in the classroom.
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