Originally Posted by snbauser:
Some of my stuff that I rotate are things like I have letter puzzles so rather than overwhelm them with 26 puzzles, I only put out the letters we are working on that month or I have a set of 4 puzzles for the seasons and I only put out the current season. Or for the little animals figures they love to play with in the blocks, I have sets - dinosaurs, farm animals, arctic animals, etc that I put out when we are working on those themes or it is that time of the year. I rotate our books based on what we are studying at the time. I also have different types of manipulative blocks (bristle blocks, duplo's, lincoln logs, magnetic blocks, small colored table blocks, wooden tree blocks, etc) that are only put out 2 or 3 at a time. I don't put all of my dress up or play food out at one time either. I have a bunch of different larger sized trucks that I only put out 2 or 3 at a time. I rotate between our car garage, our wooden train tracks, and our road carpet. I change out our puppets and felt stories based on either the season, interests, or what we are learning about.
I have been lucky enough to get several grants over the 9 years I have been licensed and have become really good at getting donations from my parents and hitting up consignment sales and garage sales to collect what I have.
Things that I put out on a monthly basis that pertain to our theme or what we are learning are books, puzzles, felt board, etc. They usually relate to my theme or what we are learning that month. In addition my sensory bins usually corelate with the theme or holiday.
So last months theme was gardens
I only had out the vegetables and fruit from the play food.
My 2 sensory bins were moon sand w/ sunflower seeds & garden tools and ribbon pieces and silk flowers.
The color was orange so I only put out the orange blocks and the orange cars.
This months theme is space
So I have a bunch of different size rubber balls to play with as planets. In the dramatic play area, I have space suit costumes. I also have a ton of not working walkie talkes that I put out. All week they have been wearing them and I have several card board boxes as their space ships and been talking to on their walkie talkies. If I hear "infinity and beyond" one more time!
