Preschool Classroom Setup-Walls

So, it is February and I am FINALLY getting my post up from the beginning of the year about our classroom setup. These are some photos of our circle time area wall and our birthday board. I decided to make it real simple this year. We don't even have a calendar, just the interchangable day, month and weather words. Also, I love that our word wall is interactive with velcro, so the children can take the words off when they want. Also, the laminated white posterboard is being used as a dry erase board for making our webs about our topic, lists, etc. When done, I take a photo before erasing it for documentation. It is much better than having chart paper hung all over the room or finding somewhere to store it that I will remember.

Here is a close-up of the word wall.

Here is our birthday board.

Please leave comments about things that are on the walls in your classroom!

Mystery Box

This is a very simple idea. It's called the mystery box. You can see a photo of ours below, although it can be a simple as a cardboard box with a hole cut in it. It is excellent to use as a starter for circle time. You can place an object inside relating to your topic and have the children try to guess what it is. There are so many ways you can incorporate this in your classroom. Another example is put cut-out foam letters inside and for small group, have the child try to guess what letter they pick up. Then you can have them match their letter to an object that begins with that sound. Whatever you do with it, the children will get excited because of the element of mystery surrounding it. The want to know what's in it so bad, they will try to pull it out, get just a little peek, or look around the back if yours is clear on the back like mine!

For an extension, after you have done it a few times with the kids so they have the hang of it, have one child choose an item to put in and allow the other children to guess. Try things with different textures, so they will have to think about it. You could even put 2 different things in and describe one to see if they can pull out the correct one. Allow them to shake the box so they can see what it sounds to help them if they can't guess at first.