### How to Zone

your Zones are a great way to organize centers

## Preschool Classroom

in your early childhood classroom!

Here are 6 basic rules of thumb for setting up zones successfully and making them work for you and your students

***

### Divide your classroom into four zones, each containing several activity centers.

### Zones should be marked off clearly with colors, animals, shapes, or something

* similar to help you with classroom management and transitions.

Within each zone, it’s best to array the centers throughout the area using

### zone-separating pieces of furniture, instead of lining them up against the wall. In

* classrooms with wall-hugging activity centers, most nonengagement happens in the wide-open shared space in the middle of the zone.

When you’re scattering centers throughout zones, be aware of the activity levels

### associated with each center. For example, the book center (generally a quiet area)

* should not be located near the sand and water table (generally a more noisy, active area). Different kinds of engagement happen in different types of centers. If they’re too close together, you’ll probably notice your students are disturbing each other’s activities.

### To help children prepare for a transition from one activity to another, give them a

### heads-up: “In 2 minutes, everybody will go to the giraffe zone for circle time!”

*

Avoid placing tables in the middle of the room. Putting tables rather than toys in the middle area forces you to arrange centers around the edges of the room. And * having tables and chairs in the center gives the room an academic feel, which implies that kids are doing table activities for a large portion of the day.

#### Adapted from Engagement of Every Child

#### in the Preschool Classroom by R.A. McWilliam