Saturday, November 5, 2011

Classroom Rugs - Children's Inspiration To Learning

Children today are easily distracted when it comes to learning and teaching children is tough. Teachers and childcare providers need all the help they can get when it comes to educating children. A classroom rug is a teaching aid that is invaluable in the classroom. These bright and fun classroom carpets come in many shapes, sizes, and themes. All geared to help the classroom teacher or daycare provider educate and inspire children.

Who uses classroom rugs?
Many classroom rugs on the market today have been designed with the preschool or elementary school teacher in mind. Also, faith based rugs have made a big impact in private schools and churches. Educators that teach preschool to elementary age children use alphabet rugs and number rugs to teach the early learning basics. Plus, there are childrens rugs available to teach color and shape recognition. Librarians use library rugs at circle time to organize children for maximum quietness and order. There are even map rugs, Spanish rugs, and music rugs to teach kids social studies, foreign languages, and music. Finally, we know kids are energetic and need play time to be healthy and develop social skills and to meet this need there are many play rugs available.

Classroom Carpets that Teach and Organize
Above we discussed who uses classroom rugs and briefly touched on how they are used, but let's take a closer look. Below is list of some of the common themes of classroom rugs currently available.

Alphabet rugs - Available with uppercase, lowercase, combination, and with images and letters. An alphabet rug will aid in letter recognition and phonics. Children's rugs with letters and images aid in letter association with a word --- for example, the letter "D" and a picture of a dinosaur. Teachers can use an alphabet carpet to teach preschool and elementary school students the alphabet and spelling. Learning this way is fun, exciting, & interactive!

Number rugs - With a number rug children will learn to recognize numbers and learn to count. Some children's rugs come with both the alphabet and numbers.

Seating rugs - Seating classroom carpets usually come with colored squares or circles arranged in a grid or pattern and are designed to seat a certain number of children. Depending classroom size you can seat up to 20 to 30 kids on one classroom carpet. The larger the carpet the more children you can seat. Seating rugs are great for sharing at circle time or reading at story time. A seating rug organizes children which translates into a calmer and more peaceful classroom. Teachers and librarians will love seating rugs!

Shape and Color rugs - Teach geometric shapes and color recognition. Elements of this theme of rugs is often found in some of the other classroom carpet themes, but if you need to teach color and what a square, circle, triangle, oval, etc. look like then pick one of these kids rugs.

Faith Based rugs - A faith based rug usually includes elements of the above carpets, but also includes a religious teaching. If you teach in a Catholic school, Christian school, Jewish school, or church you will find a large selection of religious rugs to choose.

Bilingual rugs - Today teaching another language is critical as different cultures come together. A bilingual rug in Spanish-English or French-English are available to teach either ESL kids English or English speaking children Spanish or French. Look for bilingual rugs that teach numbers, letters, colors, shapes, and word association. Some bilingual rugs teach several of these on the same carpet. What a fun way to learn another language & teach cultural diversity!

Map rugs - A great teacher's aid for teaching geography or social studies. Look for carpets that include all 50 U.S. States or a world map rug that includes all the continents and their names. With a map rug children will learn U.S and world geography in a snap!

Play rugs - When kids need to be inside look to a play rug as a fun alternative to board games. Hopscotch rugs are a fun activity that most kids will love. Road rugs that have city streets can be used for playing with toy cars, etc. These carpets help kids learn fine motor skills, coordination, and balance.

As teachers look for new, exciting, and fun ways to grab the attention of children and inspire them to learn, one alternative is to include classroom rugs as a teaching aide. There are many shapes, sizes, colors, and themes available today that preschool and elementary teachers, daycare centers, and churches can find that will fit their needs. Adding one of these children's rugs will also brightened up a dull classroom!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I've seen a lot of religious rugs, every single one so far has been in Salt Lake city, Utah however, from Muslims. They aren't bad people like they've been portrayed to be. They are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Okay, most of them anyway.