All Manner of Pressing Issues

These are the sweet faces that keep me going professionally and have taught me much personally. I am a better person in so many ways because of these kiddos. June will be bittersweet.

Below you’ll find some literacy center ideas. I am certainly not presenting anything Earth shattering, but I do hope you’ll be reminded of an idea you haven’t thought of in awhile or that you might pick up a new idea you can try in your classroom.

Computer Center: Students use Earobics software.This software is expensive, but well worth the money. Funding may also be available. When I didn’t have Earobics, my students used this website.

The students use the yellow chart beside the computer to mark the days they use the computer center. This helps the speech therapist and I see at a glance who is using Earobics– I want my strugglers to use it most often, so sometimes they get a turn outside of center time.

Listening Center: I have a basket of books on tape/CD underneath the table. Students are responsible for keeping the books and tapes/CDs in the correct bag and neatly organized. I only put 3-4 books on tape/CD in the basket a time. I try to change them once every few weeks. I also have an optional form for the students. The can write the date, title, author/illustrator, and what the book was about. It also has a spot on it using facial expressions where they can choose how much they liked/didn’t like the book.

Lightbulb Lab: Our writing station is located in front of our word wall (complete with a crooked M and missing T–Welcome to first grade). The Lightbulb Lab is stocked with pencils flagged “Lightbulb Lab”, 2 dictionaries, paper with lines/paper without lines (in folders labeled as such), index cards, envelopes, letter stamps/ink pad, and crayons.

At this center the students may write letters, make cards, or draw a picture and write words about it. Some students also write/stamp high frequency words from the word wall. This is also acceptable to me.

Phonics/Phonemic Awareness: The pouches on this pocket chart contain magnetic letters. The students can use these to build words in the clear pockets. On the opposite side of the letter pocket chart is a plain pocket chart where the students can do some of the activities in the snowman tin.

In the snowman tin there are beginning sound match-ups (picture with letter), an alphabet chart that has been cut up that they can put in order, sorts from Words Their Way (letter name) that we have done in class together (color-coded and organized in snack size baggies), and sight word concentration. I have been so proud of my students for only getting out one game and putting it away before getting something else out. They’ve handled this so well!

Just a little note on the sight word concentration: I cut index cards in half. I made each set with 10 words (20 half index cards))–I wrote a word and made a card with its match. I wrote the words in a yellow marker so the words wouldn’t show through. I coded the two sets by using stickers. When I was finished, I laminated the cards and put them in snack size baggies.

Classroom Library: This is our classroom library and our carpet area where I teach a lot. I use the bulletin board as an easel. I pin up charts for familiar reading (one a time) and use the pocket chart for our phonics/phonemic awareness time. At one time I had the rocking chair in the classroom library, but I think it’s better for the students for me to be on the carpet with them or at least in a student chair so I am lower to the ground.

In this center students may read big books, books from our classroom library, or books from
their familiar reading baskets. Sometimes they also will do a sort we’re using in phonics/phonemic awareness or read a chart I have posted from Shared Reading. All of these activities are acceptable to me—so long as they’re doing something constructive!

Sidenote: The only books in our classroom library are books that I have read aloud to the students.

Fluency Center: In the basket underneath the easel I have placed the following items: rhyming books, poems cut apart on sentence strips for the students to put in order, a binder that contains fluency poems we’ve done in class in page protectors, charts that we read together during Shared Reading, and a rhyming sound match-up. On the opposite side of the easel is an alphabet chart that is different from the one we do a few times a week in Shared Reading (and every day in some reading groups), but it still has only short vowels.

Management: I have 14 students (heaven) and 6 centers. Some center groups have 3 students, but in a perfect world I’d have only 2 students in each group. I should really add 1 more center to even it out. In the groups that have 3 students, I try to put students from different reading groups in the group. Previously I have grouped students for centers according to reading groups, but I quickly found that I had created a situation where the blind were leading the blind or there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. I now have students grouped more according to personalities and varied readiness levels.

Some of you might be wondering what happens with the groups of 3 when they go to computer or listening. For computer, 1 of the 3 goes across the hall to use a computer in a different classroom and for listening, the group simply unplugs the headphones. Certainly not a perfect situation, but it gets the job done!

The students’ names are on the striped cards below the letters, but I “erased” them for confidentiality purposes. After a center rotation, I remove the group from the last center (F) and move all the names down and then place the group that was at center F underneath A. The students have the rotation down so much that once they have a starting point they know where they’re going next without looking at the rotation chart. It is good for me though because if someone seems to be wandering I can look at the chart and see where that person is supposed to be… but that never happens.

This rotation is right beside my reading group table so that I can change the groups quickly between reading groups.

If you would like more information about anything I have shared or if you have a suggestion, please let me know! I need and appreciate new ideas. I am hoping to get new bulletin boards up this week and when I do I will post those ideas, so come back soon!