Most preschool and kindergarten teachers have signs to label each center in the classroom. Center signs help define the different areas of the classroom and are even required in some programs.
I have used center signs in my classroom for years but I have always had a problem with them. There are a few students every year who misinterpret the signs. For example, if the sign for the writing center shows a pencil or crayon the child goes to the writing center, gets out the items pictured and will only use those materials! This is probably because I work primarily with students who are second language learners or have limited language skills {receptive and expressive} in general. They use the pictures on the signs as cues and they interpret what they see as what they are allowed to do.
To solve this problem and help my students be more successful I created signs that use an actual photograph of each center. I include photographs of centers on my center chart and also display the same photograph in each center so students can “match” the picture from the chart to the center.
Photographs are great tools to use in any early childhood setting but I also wanted to communicate the importance and benefit of centers to other adults that frequently visit our classroom such as volunteers, parents, paraprofessionals, substitutes, and administrators. To accomplish this task I created a document for each center and included the skills that were being addressed in each one. Here is an example of one of my center signs.
I combined both elements together, an area for pictures and text, to create a packet of Center Signs. There are 8 different colors to choose from and each packet contains signs for 15 different centers.
Newsletter subscribers received the free sample center sign a few weeks ago and their feedback was instrumental in the creation of the signs- thanks subscribers!
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