[ellicat]

What kinds of "toys" do you have in your classroom? I work at a small private school and the Preschool room has the kitchen center, play house, dress up clothes, etc. I want K to be different. Currently I have a ton of large wooden blocks, puzzles, games, etc. The problem is, I'm running out of room in my class for the larger items! Where to put the huge bins of blocks where there is enough room to play with them is becoming an issue. Anyone else have this kind of problem? What creative solutions can you offer?

[kali]

Shelves with good organization and labeling are key. I also find it helpful to organize the classroom with permanent areas. Could one of your areas be BLOCKS?

BLOCKS are great and I would recommend that you actually make a block center for literacy and free choice times. They make a perfect kindergarten center for the entire year. I would add large plastic animals, signs, vehicles, graph paper, rulers, a digital camera, carpenter pencils, measuring tapes, people figures,clip boards, etc. Your purpose could change with curriculum needs. Shelves with labeled/photo bins for the tools will help with clean up and organizational skills. I had the best luck with a very smooth rug that allowed for comfort yet stability for blocks.

WORD WORK could be another permanent center, and could have a table with seating, and could have puzzles, games, felt boards, magnetic letters and boards, pocket charts, etc.

An ECOLOGY & SCIENCE center where you could store measuring stuff, sad table, magnifying lenses, fish tank for observation or other critter, science related games and puzzles, mirrors, magnets, microscopes, nature table with seasonal objects, plant & animal guides, rocks and crystals, etc.

Things like wheels & gears, legos, lacing cards, and the many other manipulatives I would purchase the wooden storing cabinets from like LakeShore and I would label and store my stuff all neat in them. When I would need to use them I would put a portion in small baskets for each table, when the students were done with them they would dump their small basket of objects back where they got them

[MollyJ.]

a vet clinic?
a doctor's office?
a restaurant?
a repair shop (for example, my son has the old lock from our front door, and a pretend tool box, and one day he was hammering on the lock to "fix" it)?

Good luck!

[jacque/Wa/K-1]

don't forget things like alphabet beads and chenille stems for 'beading' in the beginning of the year, then graduate to elastic cord later in the year...

Plastic animals--the good ones from lakeshore, students will sort and classify these automatically.

Bristle Blocks, screws/nuts/bolts, legos, multicultural figures/families, signs

dolls-multicultural, foods too, dot painters, games, puzzles (floor), wooden paper dolls with magnetic clothes (Costco sold these last year and they came with 3 dolls per set--I bought 2 sets, definite favorite).

warming tray for crayon melting (Target had a perfect size last year on sale for less than $20....and though I only paid $1.50 for my old one, this was still a good deal). Used this all year long for both boys and girls...good for fine motor skills.