Preschool Learning Corners

Learning Corners in Preschool

• Learning corners are designed as physical spaces to promote diverse and flexible interactions between students.
• Playful activities involving manipulation, creativity, exploration, and investigation are central to these interactions.
• Each learning corner contains materials organized into specific activities to support individual or small group work.
• These corners encourage students to explore, experiment, use their creativity and imagination, and engage in play.
• Play in these corners fosters the formative process.
• A key goal is to cultivate student autonomy.
• Teachers structure these spaces with specific didactic intentions in mind.
• Children have the autonomy to choose activities within each corner, organizing their actions, playing, investigating, and exploring based on their interests.
• Curiosity drives exploration at their own pace.
• Focus is on creating experiences related to content and learning processes rather than achieving a specific product.
• The experiences promote overall student development.

Implementation of Learning Corners

• Implementation starts with an understanding of the current context by identifying a need, problem, or area for improvement.
• Cultural practices within families or the community can serve as a contextual example.
• Physical areas are defined with non-sequential activities, linked by a common theme.
• Students have the freedom to select which corner they want to work in.
• When focusing on cultural practices, corners could be dedicated to typical foods, crafts, legends, and traditional dances.
• Students engage simultaneously in various activities based on their choice of corner.

General Structure

• Initial Assembly provides a space for organization, making agreements, and clarifying any doubts.
• During Work in Each Corner, children engage in most or all learning corners.
• Closing Assembly involves sharing what was done, what was learned, reflections, progress, and any pending tasks.
• Activities are programmed, organized, and presented on a sheet.
• The activity sheet includes the time and days designated for each learning corner.

Didactic Structure for Planning

Prior Knowledge

• The corner's theme should be linked to a relevant social problem, topic of interest, reflection, area for improvement, daily situation, event, or group need.
• Exploration of a specific need, problem, topic, or reflection should be encouraged.
• This exploration serves as the guiding thread, logically integrating didactic planning with curriculum elements.
• It's important to ensure children understand the corners, materials, activity spaces.
• Prior knowledge about the content should be recovered in each corner.
• Activities should explore spaces and materials using a marker for easy location.
• Discuss prior experiences to recall students' previous knowledge, such as discussions about planting in pots or exploring puppets in a theater corner.

Initial Assembly and Planning

• Agreements and commitments should be defined and recorded.
• Rules should be established for coexistence and care in each corner.
• A routine should be followed, starting with an initial assembly, moving to corner work, and concluding with a final assembly.
• Activities in each corner should be discussed, and how they support learning.
• Activity sheets should be outlined, and their usage, and the materials in each corner.
• The time allocated for each corner needs to be determined.
• Track progress, using calendars, agendas, or planners.
• A decision needs to be made regarding how many children can be in per corner.
• Children should be allowed to change corners once they finish their activities.
• If necessary, a new corner can be added to support learning.
• Students must understand the activities inside the corners.
• Support should be offered, progress should be monitored, and any conflicts should be resolved.
• During assemblies, progress is reviewed and dialogue/self-evaluation is encouraged, recognizing achievements, difficulties, and needs.
• Self-evaluation and peer evaluation should be encouraged for feedback purposes.
• Plan modifications should be allowed, reflecting between corner changes.

Sharing Learning

• Children should be encouraged to recall a guiding need, problem, area for improvement, topic of interest, or reflection.
• Guide students to recognize what they did, how, who they can share with, and why.
• Have students present productions and achievements to others.
• The emphasis should be on the learning process, not solely on the final product.

Reflection on Learning

• Encourage children to recognize utilized corners, activities, and how they were carried out.
• Ask what they enjoyed, what was complex, and why as well as interactions and conflicts.
• Determine what helped working collaboratively, and how the teacher helped.
• Recognize advancement in curriculum content and experiences and anything needing reinforcement for future experiences.

Explore the use of learning corners in preschool to promote interaction and autonomy. These spaces encourage playful activities, exploration, and creativity. Teachers structure corners with didactic intentions, letting children choose activities based on interests.