Preschool Centers - Labels

How do we divide the kids into their small groups each week?

Truly ... it's a simple process and after several weeks of trial and error I couldn't think of an easier way to do it ... it was just finding that way to do it that took a little bit of time! But it works!

First of all, remember that preschoolers can't read! They do know their colors and most of them recognize or can at least match numbers. So this limits your options :-)

At first I tried allowing the computer assignment system to divide the kids. Randomly I divided each room into four colors - but, it never failed when it was time to split up there would be 10 kids in the Blue group and 0 in the Red group ... which just left everyone confused.

So...here's my solution...

A sheet of mailing labels and a Publisher document.

I take the four centers and create a document with four color boxes - one color per label. The colors repeat every four labels, which evenly distributes the children into small groups. The labels also have a number printed on them. The number corresponds to the child's bin in the classroom where they keep all of their things while they're in the classroom. When it's time to break up into centers the children look at the color box on their label and go to that same mat color. The kids are able to match their colors and know exactly where to go when they start...and trust me - they know where to begin because in the rare case that you have to start a kid at a different color than what's on their label ... there are a million questions to answer and some very stressed preschoolers :-)