PLAYING CORNER AT HOME/ IN SCHOOL

Planning and organizing Learning corners: In school

At schools: The setup of the learning corner is a bit different from one at home. Here we have a dedicated corner for each subject i.e. Reading corner, Music corner, Blocks and puzzles corner, Dramatic corner, Games corner, Math/ Numeracy corner, Science/ experiment corner. 

The following points are few guidelines can be used when setting up a corner:

  1. Assign a colour/ colour code to each corner, for example, Reading corner could be a green zone, so that the racks, pillows and mats used in the reading corner could be green, Similarly if Math corner is blue, then the mats, tables and racks could be in blue colour. Thus when you want the students to move from their space to a specific corner you could just call out the name of the colour. For example, you could say “Everyone, Please gather in the blue corner for the Math activities”. 
  2. When setting up the corners make sure that all the noisy corners are on one side and all the silent corners on the other side. For example, keep music corner, dramatic play corner, game corner on one side and reading corner, blocks corner, math corner on the other side.
  3. Keep in mind that all the racks, materials, and running boards should be at the child’s eye level. This helps them see what they need and reach for it themselves.
  4. Keep all the materials in labeled trays. This will help you with organizing the materials and as well as help the children recognize what label indicates for the materials.
  5. Make sure to have enough materials in a single corner that can keep at least 3 to 4 children engaged at a time.
  6. Try to change materials based on the themes. But do not move racks or change the assigned colours to the corner. 
  7. During their free time let the children explore the different materials and come to you with questions. Let them talk about their experience with the materials that were used or are using.
  8. Make sure that the children are all comfortable with the materials in the different corners. 
  9. Most importantly, make sure that the hazardous materials are out of their reach as there may be times when it would be difficult to monitor all children in different corners. 

(Example of hazardous materials: objects that are sharp, objects that could cause a fire, small objects that could pose choking hazards.)