To create this section of my website, I just sat down and began writing as I reflected upon my own experiences with and desires for learning centers.  I hope you find something useful.  I will come back as often as I can to add notes/activities as I remember them.  I consider what I've written below to be the basics -- items for almost any time of year.  I would add other games according to themes as the year goes on.

General thoughts and tips:

I was taught that Learning Centers: Belong to the children, we adults are only facilitators;  Activities in learning centers should be open-ended, needing little or no adult intervention, where children can learn on their own;  Activities shouldn't all be put out at once, but rather rotated on a monthly or thematic basis, or when boredom sets in.

One of my main rules for learning center play: We clean up after ourselves

Some years I have labeled my containers and shelves in order to have a more organized classroom and to expose the children to language.  I have two favorite ways of labeling: Let's say I have a container for storing the pegboard pegs.  On a large self-adhesive label, I would print the word "Pegs," then draw around 2-3 pegs and color them in.  Another option: I always save outdated preschool supply catalogs.  I might cut out a picture of the pegs in the catalog and then glue it to the label.  Often, classroom supplies are ordered from these catalogs so the pictures are of the same exact supplies you have in the room.

CREATIVE ART CENTER

Collage material suggestions: Cotton balls, felt and fabric scraps, sequins, ribbon pieces, yarn pieces (I especially like those little stacks of pre-cut short pieces that are pre-packaged for making rugs), string, paper plates, wood chips/mulch, glitter, confetti, stickers, buttons, plastic flowers, sponge pieces, rock salt, macaroni and noodles in assorted shapes, gravel (including aquarium gravel), pebbles, tiny seashells, colored sand and/or rice in a perforated top bottle, pinecones, rick-rack, beads, straws,......

And how about this -- put sawdust or coffee in a perforated top bottle for use in the Art Center!

I personally would keep back some of the above items for special occasions or for use with particular themes.  For example, I would probably save plastic flowers for use with my "Spring" unit unless I had far too many of them, and I might put out bottles of colored sand every day, but not glitter.

My pet peeve about Art Centers: Disorganization, where everything is just thrown together!  I know I wouldn't want to play there.  Collage materials are so much more appealing if they are separated into various containers rather than dumped all together.  Lazy Susans are a great way to display what's available in the Art Center.  You can sometimes find great bargains on big ones at thrift stores.  For more ideas on how to organize, go check out the office supply section or the Rubbermaid container section at Wal-Mart.

My minimally educated opinion is that Art Centers need some supervision -- not to intervene in the children's creations, but rather to keep things organized and guide children in clean-up tasks, etc.
 

Suggested items: Puzzles (including rubber ones), sewing cards, self-help skill activities (button, zip, snap, etc), geoboards, bead stringing (large and small beads), parquetry shapes, pegs and pegboards, Tinker toys, Lego toys, Turn-A-Gears, any kind of interlocking toys, definitely paper and various sizes of pens and pencils, stencils,......

My puzzle rules:
1. We remove each piece with our hands rather than turning the puzzle over and dumping out the pieces.
2. If we can't do a puzzle, we get help rather than leaving it and walking away.
Have you ever had a situation where several puzzles were on the floor with the pieces scattered, you didn't know who did it, and time was running out?  To quickly place loose puzzle pieces into the right puzzle, print numbers on the back of each piece at the beginning of the school year.  For example, put a number 1 on the back of a puzzle and on the back of each piece from that puzzle.
Puzzle Difficulty Tip: At the beginning of the year, if your 7 piece (and higher) puzzles seem too difficult, take a pencil and lightly trace around each piece.  Later on, once children have mastered the puzzles using the lines to help them, erase the pencil lines -- now they have a new challenge.

Paper punches: I love paper punches as a fine-motor choice.  I like to place 5 x 7 pieces of paper with printed objects on them with the punches.  For example, if one of our themes for the month is Transportation, children could choose a print-out of a truck, plane, or boat, etc out.  They simply then punch holes around the outline of the object.  Changing the color paper that you print objects out on adds variety.

Allow children the experience of placing paper fasteners into paper punched holes.

For cuttting practice: I like to put out papers with pre-drawn circles on them, or small strips of paper with pre-drawn lines on them for creating fringes, and of course, magazines are always great for finding things to cut.  Put out paper clips too (children can use these for grouping their papers together that they've cut out).  Placing the paper clip onto the papers is in itself a good fine-motor challenge.

Suitcases: Next time you're at a thrift store, look for a couple small suitcases with lots of snaps, buckles, zippers, and locks to manipulate.  These make great options for fine-motor play.  In fact, you might want to glue a neat "child's interest" picture in each compartment (picture of Barney, for example).  You can do the same thing with different types of purses.  

Although I also consider playdoh and clay as Fine Motor, I sometimes place them in the Art Center where there is usually a linoleum floor -- makes for easier clean-up.
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Reminder from Stormie: If you would like to begin collecting ALL my current classroom ideas (each on a 4 x 6" index card), as well as new ones that I create, you can do so by ordering my "Activity Cards."  Click here to check them out.