Learning Center Design Plan #___1________

Learning Center: Science Students Name: Sarah Gould Week to be Implemented in

Current Skills, Abilities and Interests: What current skills,
abilities and interests do the children in your room have that
you will build off of (be very specific)? What have you
OBSERVED about children in the room (or what data has been
collected) that makes you think this center design is a good
fit?
INTERESTS: Hands on items such as blocks, dirt, art materials
or things that they can touch and manipulate.
ABILITIES/SKILLS: ability to visually inspect and manipulate
objects using senses, and fine and gross motor skills. such as
to build objects, reading and writing, and understanding colors
and small manipulations.
classroom:4/3
WMELS Addressed: What skills do children need to develop
next (based on what you wrote in Box 1)? What are your
objectives for child learning when they play in this center?
Identify 2-3 WMELS that will be addressed through play in this
center.
Exploration, Discovery and problem solving:
Understands new meanings as memory increases:
Recognizes functional uses of items in the environment.
Scientific thinking: Hypothesizes and makes
predictions: Makes plans for testing hypotheses to
prove or disprove predictions.

Materials & Physical Set Up: What materials and/or activities will you include in the center to enhance, or improve upon
what is already there? Provide a specific and detailed list to receive full credit. Include a list of materials and a brief
explanation of WHY you chose to add them.
I will improve the center with a science experiment of flowers in colored water vases on top that we will do together and graph if
they think the flowers will change color or not, seeds in a bag with the envelope of what they are will be added to be looked at
with magnifying glasses, a real butterfly exhibit with caterpillars so the children can see the life cycle of the butterfly. Rainbow
sensory bottles so the children can recall the colors of a rainbow and how rainbows are made. The Fake flowers, planters and
watering cans are so the children can plant and recall how flowers grow and what they need. The bugs and exhibits are so the
children can use the bug catchers to catch the bugs and see the different spring creatures. I chose these items because as our
lesson moves into spring I want to draw the children back to the science center by having an experiment that can be visually
seen for an outcome so the children can see the changes daily. I also want to add a real life butterfly exhibit so the children can
learn the different sequences a butterfly goes through and how they live as a part of nature. The sensory bottles, seeds, bugs,
birds, butterflies, frogs and exhibits will be used for child manipulation to be able to study and look up close at some plants and
creatures.
Materials:
Rainbow sensory bottles
 Learning Center Design Plan #___1________
Bags with open seeds in them and the packet
Butterfly exhibit
Flowers- live and fake
Flower pots
Flower watering can
Frogs ,bugs, snakes, butterflies and birds
Bug exhibit containers with tweezer toys and magnifying glasses

Child Guidance - Direct and Indirect: Interesting materials in the center may keep the children from being bored.
The variety of activities may promote positive relationships by working together to create hypothesis about the
butterflies and flowers. Along with using positive relationships to create social interaction skills to play with
creatures and animals. Guidance: Clear rules are used to assure that materials are kept in the area. Picture labels
are used to assure items go back to the right place and for easy locating.

Explain how each of the following is facilitated through your center design:

Initiative, Engagement Reasoning, Planning & Differentiated Instruction

(including social
interaction) & Persistence
The children will have
graphed if they think the
flowers would change colors
so they will have persistence
and initiative to come back
and check. Then I will also
have the seeds and nature
windows to help encourage
plant life. Also the children
will be talking about what the
butterfly is doing each week.
Problem Solving
To keep the center interesting
to the children, encouraging
the children to make
predictions on their own or
with a friend about flowers
and butterflies and other
plants. To encourage scientific
thinking and problem solving
abilities.
Essential Objective: The children practice using fine
motor skills for observing smaller materials.
Expected Objective: Children may predict what is going
to happen and put their prediction on a graph then be
able to talk about the differences with the flowers and
the butterfly daily.
Enhanced Objective: The children will be able to tell the
sequence of events that happen to plants and
butterflies before doing the experiments and
observations. Children will practice using basic
scientific skills of making a hypothesis and outcome.
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Student Reflection

What went well (beyond The children enjoyed it)?

The children all said yes that the flowers will change during the flower experiment and took turns dying the
water and putting the flowers in the vases. The children used the nets and bug boxes in the science area
to catch the pretend butterflies and bugs. The children used the bugs, animals and creatures to pretend
that they were real. The real caterpillars were checked on by the children daily along with the color
changing flowers.

What would you change next time?

The flowers and planting containers arent played with a lot so Id like to change it to planting real plants.
The sensory bottles werent used a lot either so I would change them into more nature bottles instead of
rainbow.
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Instructor Evaluation Cooperating Teacher Feedback/Comments

(Please circle the best response):
0-10 points awarded for each criteria (total 10):
Design plan was turned in and discussed the
Design is based on current skills/abilities of the week prior to implementation. Y N
children ____
Recommended changes were made. Y N
Design reflects a high degree of rigor and critical
thought. ____ You were provided with a CLEAN copy of the
design plan at the time of implementation. Y
Design included new, meaningful, motivating and/or N
engaging materials ____
Design was developmentally appropriate and
Student was prepared and met all timelines (including contained engaging, novel & motivating
making changes). ____ materials. Y N
Self-Reflection section is complete, detailed & Design plan reflects good effort and a great deal
reflective. ____ of thought on the part of the student. Y N
Total Score Student considered the abilities and needs of
/50 the children in the design. Y N

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