We all know play is children’s work, but how do I make it work for me. Here are some helpful hints to make your play based classroom run smoothly.
You do NOT need everything out.
First, I seriously have closets stacked high because I do not put all the toys out. Too many toys is overwhelming and leaves you with nothing new to highlight. Instead, put toys away. Plastic tubs or drawers are the best way to do this. Labels make finding it next time easier. If you allow 4 children in block area you only need 4-8 cars out and you can put the others away.
Rotate toys with your different themes.
Next, I rotate toys and activities every 2-4 weeks to help with play engagement. For instance, the first two weeks our zoo animals are in our block area. The next week they will move to our small world area. Then the zoo animals will go away until next year. I rotate everything from sensory tables to art extras. I’ve just removed the stencils from art and replaced them with shaped hole punches. If you have a year long pacing guide you can make notes about which toys you want out during your different themes. This will help you use all that is in your closets.
Set clear clean up expectations.
Play is great, but cleaning up can be hard. When I teach my students how to play in each area (we learn 2 a day until we have mastered them), I explicitly teach how they will clean up. Everything has a spot but because there are limited materials out there is less to clean up. When I rotate new toys in, I teach the children’s my expectations about how to use the toy, how to put the toy away, and anything they might need to know about its use. As you can see my classroom is set up to encourage children to be independent. Read more about my classroom set up here.
Engage with your students.
This one is tricky, there is lots to be done in a classroom, but also too much teacher engagement leads the children away from their play and into ours.
After I model and demonstrate how to use a material, I exit the play. After I teach one group to use a material, I often put them in charge of teaching others about that material.
Then I sit near by and talk to other children, ask questions, and monitor everyone’s safety. This way I hear the best conversations, I can observe multiple children, I can take dictations from the children about the work they are doing, and I’m ready to step into an area that might need more scaffolding.
Questions I like to ask: How are you getting to the…? I noticed you ….? What will you add…? Tell me how to built…? How are you and… working together?
Have children share about their play.
This is another hard one; it is what always seems to get bumped at the end of the day for something else, but I’m trying to do better. At the end of the day, we go through our seesaw app as a class and the children share their different creations with the class. We talk about problems they had, solutions they discovered, and it helps to see other play happening.
If you haven’t used seesaw for sharing photos with families I highly recommend it. I teach my 4 year-olds how to do it so it makes my life even easier. Here
