If you’ve ever taught young children (and my bet is you have, since you’re listening to this podcast) then you’ve probably had your fair share of daily fires to put out.

I feel you, I’ve been there too. 

It’s no secret that the daily life of an early childhood educator isn’t always sunshine and roses. And sometimes, it’s just really, really hard.

One of the issues many pre-k teachers struggle with is what to do when all their students want to go to the same center at the same time!

As you know already, some centers are simply more popular than others (like the dramatic play center, for example), so it makes sense that everyone wants to participate in it.

When that’s not possible, you may have to limit the number of students in a center.

How do you do that?

Tune in now to find out!

My Listener’s Question

In this week’s episode, I’ll be answering a question one of my listeners asked me. Here is how it goes:

“Hi, I have a class of fourteen children. I have four three-year-olds, five four-year-olds, and five five-year-olds. And my question is, when you dismiss them to go to centers, do you randomly pick a child to choose first? My problem is they all want to go to either the kitchen or the blocks, and I can’t have all fourteen of them at those centers, because it causes a lot of problems, a lot of behavior problems when there’s so many at just those two centers. So I didn’t know the best way to manage them.”

In one of my previous episodes, I discussed how I called children up to choose their centers and make a choice before, then going to them. 

Here’s how I do it: The students have to look at center pictures and they have to touch the right picture and say the name of the center and then go there. But how do I choose which student goes first? Keep reading to find out.

Managing Center Time in the Preschool Classroom

How do I choose which child goes first? Well, usually, I simply look for the child who was exemplifying the qualities of a good participant or listener during our circle time. And I tell them that today, they will be choosing which center to go to first.

Then, after that, I would call up the other students in pairs or small groups (depending on the number of children in the class) and dismiss them to their centers. 

Help! All My Students Want to Go to the Same Center!

In my listener’s message, they said that all their students wanted to go to one or two specific centers and neglected the other ones. How can they (and you) solve this issue? Well, it depends on how many times a week you meet your students…

If You’re Teaching a Monday to Friday Class

If you have a Monday through Friday class where your students get an hour or more for free choice play every day, then it’s possible that the children feel most comfortable in the more popular centers (such as blocks or the dramatic play center). 

One way to solve this issue is going back and doing a little more demonstrating or modeling in each of the other centers to show the children what they can do in those centers. Sometimes, small kids will flock to the more popular centers simply because they don’t know what to do in the other ones.

If You’re Teaching a Two to Three-Days a Week Class

If your class only meets two or three days a week, then you cannot expect the children to be ready to have given up the novelty of the more popular centers like dramatic play and blocks, since they are still new to them. 

The novelty of those centers is going to take a lot longer to wear off. However, you’re still going to need to talk up the other centers and make sure your students have some examples of what they can do and each of them.

You’ve learned how to get your students to go to different centers, and how to talk up the less popular centers to them. However, what can you do if all of them still insist on going to the same center? To learn the answer to that question, you’re going to have to listen to the episode above! I promise, you won’t be disappointed.