The area that I've been working on redesigning is the library/book area. The issue is that it wasn't enough space for the amount of children who wanted to be there, plus the way the book display shelves were placed, the area was in the middle of a walkway. By moving some shelves, I was able to make the area more spacious, and marked off from the other interest areas, and out of the way from a traffic pattern. One way I did this is by incorporating the underneath part of a table, adding some pillows and small lights to add a cozy reading area.

The transition from handwashing to snack time is usually chaotic and a good time for kids to get silly and off task and take forever to find a place to sit for snack. I've created a song that helps children stay on track so that we can all get started with snack time together. The song replaces what I would normally say and walks them through the transition that is sung to the tune of a traditional song that I can't remember: "Get your snack, get your snack, then sit down, then sit down, put our hands together, put our hands together, now let's pray, now let's pray."

I'm going to build in the Mystery Box activity to help transition from circle time to lining up for lunch. I'll have the box with me at Circle, get some discussion going about what could be inside, then once everyone is in line I'll start the game. This is typically a hard transition during a time of day when the children are tired, so it adds in some anticipation/excitment.

I am going to make the posted schedule part of the learning by using a laminated star to mark each section of the day. It make sense for the helper of the day to move the star, however there is always at least one child who has extra trouble transitioning from play to clean-up, for example, who could really use a job like this.

I have a visual schedule, made with clip art and word on a sentence strip displayed at our circle time gathering place on a pocket chart. We go over it during every morning meeting, but I don't reference it much after that. I wonder if it would help those kids, who really need support with transitions, to place some sort of marker or place holder to indicate where we are on the schedule.