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Alphabet
Avenue
See Alphabet Avenue for
suggestions and downloads for this center. I would include
an assortment of alphabet charts, alphabet books to read,
sorts for letter attributes (circles, sticks, colors, lower
case and capitals, etc.) and a wide variety of letter fonts
so that children begin to take a critical look at the way
letters are formed.
Task Board Sign
Classroom Center Sign
ABC Center Menu (color)
(BW)
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Artist's
Alley
As a reading teacher, I
didn't have this type of center. However, when I taught
third through fifth grades, I always had a vast supply of
materials that students could access for responses to
stories and poems, and for enhancing their book commercials,
book covers, and language arts projects. This included
cardboard and fabric for polished pieces that were extra
special, wallpaper sample books, construction paper, pinking
shears and other specialty scissors, brads, a stapler and
staples, and much, much more. Many of my more creative
students loved looking at my teacher resource books for
ideas for book projects and some even came back to look
through them in middle school!
This is a good center to
use when putting on a play or puppet show, flannel board
presentation. The students enjoy using materials like these
to express their creativity.
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Birthday
Boulevard
This portable center
activity is for the birthday boy or girl. Gather picture
books that address birthday celebrations and place them in a
colorful backpack for the family to read together at home.
Add a class journal so that the child can document his/her
birthday with pictures, photographs and a short narrative to
share with the class in the author's chair. You may use a
birthday form for them to fill out. Include a birthday card
and a personal message and send the backpack home for an
interactive center. Be sure to include instructions for the
parents and plan for summer birthdays. Your students will
look forward to the day they get to take the backpack home.
Task Board Sign
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My Birthday Writing Paper
Suggestions for Center
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Blocks
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Book
Boulevard
Provide a wide variety
of books for browsing, some familiar and some new. Place
your recently shared reading books and/or big books, add
some pointers for your first or second graders and listen
for eager reader's voices that might sound a bit like yours!
Comfortable seating and ambience are important in a
classroom library area. (How often do we sit at a table or
desk to read our favorite novels?!) I like to include bean
bag chairs, pillows, lamps, carpets and colorfully displayed
books. Teaching Resource Center has "comfort critters." Mine
is a six foot long caterpillar!
Be sure to include an assortment of genre or author studies,
magazines, and books that address whatever theme you are
studying. Bookcases, baskets, bins and boxes all work well
for storing and displaying your materials!
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Center Directions
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Buddy
Reading
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Computer
Corner
A computer corner can be used for several
purposes. Keep your goals and standards in mind when
designing tasks for this center. You may want your students
to work on their keyboarding skills, a Power Point or
HyperStudio presentation (for older students), play an
interactive reading or math game, or research material for a
science or social studies report. Biographical studies can
also be pursued via the internet.
My first grade team uses the computer corner
with Scholastic Interactive Readers. The CDs require the
students to reread their current book and do several lessons
to improve their skills.
Computer Corner
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Cooking
Court
or
Cook's
Corner
Here's another one of those that I have not
observed in a first grade classroom (I had a cooking center
every week when I taught kindergarten). However, I do recall
our first graders doing non-cooking food activities that
involved following directions and sequencing, and I believe
the tasks were related to a theme. For instance, during a
spider unit, they made critters with Chinese noodles,
chocolate and . . . I don't know what else. Anyone have any
classroom friendly recipes they want to share? Send your
recipe to me at
carl1404@msn.com
and I'll place it at this site with credit to the
contributor!
Here are some of the
things that one first grade teacher had at her cooking
center:
Fruit Kabobs for
patterning
Apple turkeys at
Thanksgiving
Ants on a log during
insect unit
Jelly on a Cracker
with mini book
The students had to read
the directions and make the item. Before they could eat,
they had to write an explanation of how they made the treat.
This was good for following directions, sequencing and
retelling.
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Dictionary Drive
This center may be used for
reading and alphabetizing word/picture cards. Students can
also construct, add to and illustrate their own personal
picture dictionaries.
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Dinosaur
Drive
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Environmental Print
This center is good at the
beginning of the year for early/emergent readers and to
build their confidence at being able to recognize words from
their environment. I was able to order environmental
drawings from RESOURCES for READING at 1-800-ART-READ. Some
of the drawings are of logos that your children will
recognize and the others are of common, everyday items.
These are especially good for second language learners.
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Flannel
board
Students may use flannel board pictures for
retelling old favorites.
They may sequencing story pictures or
alphabetize words.
Students may also enjoy making flannel board
characters to use with their own stories to share with the
class.
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Games
Galore
Thanks to Pepper
Paden, a Reading Specialist and Title I teacher, for this
set of task board signs.
Task Board Sign
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Graphing
Grove
At this center, you may
choose from any number of tasks, depending upon the grade
level and the ability to work independently. You can put out
an assortment of items, foods, etc. and have students sort
and graph. They should also write "true" statements that
summarize the results of the graph. One of our technological
teachers has her first graders think of a question for their
classmates, conduct a survey and then produce a simple graph
in Excel to share with their classmates. The teacher puts
the graph into her class website for parents to see.
Amazing, huh?!
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Handwriting
Highway
Since I saw many different grade levels during my work day,
I had a variety of writing tools for my students to work
with at this corner. This included white boards, eraser and
pens, Magna Doodles, chalkboards, pencil and paper, marking
pens, sand trays, Wikki Stix, stencils and more (not all out
at the same time: too many options). At the beginning of the
year I gave emergent writers the opportunity to write focus
letters on a large sheet of butcher paper in a variety of
sizes and colors. Brain research shows that children need
flexible practice, often writing with the whole arm in
motion, horizontally (at the table) and vertically (on the
large white board or butcher paper mounted on the wall or
cabinet).
Our first grade teachers
used this to practice writing high frequency words in many
different forms and sizes. See Teacher Trail for pencil
possibilities and tantalizing tools.
Task Board Sign
Classroom Center Sign
Handwriting Activity Sheet
Writers at Work
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Housekeeping
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Letter Lane
Suggestions to follow.
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Postcard
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Listening Lane
After listening to many
squabbles from small groups about turning the volume up or
down, I decided to purchase several inexpensive tape players
and earphones so that each child was responsible for the
controls. Since I only had two students to a center, this
was manageable. I placed the tape player, earphones, tape
and book in a gallon sized freezer bag.
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Magnetic
Mountain
Magnetic letters stick
to many surfaces that make readily available centers in out
of the way corners of the classroom. For example, I had
several metal cabinets, a small refrigerator, the white
board, cookie sheets, and serving trays that make this
center an easy one to set up. You can have the children sort
letters and/or build words. Tasks may be similar to those in
Word Way. However, children appreciate the opportunity to
have open ended centers, so I often allowed them to explore
with the letters and record their results or read them to a
friend.
These are often used for
practicing high frequency words.
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Math Mall
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Mystery
Mountain
This center is an excellent place to put your
"Problem of the Day" for practicing problem solving and
using thinking skills. Evan-Moor has several sets that I
like to use:
Daily Problem Solving Math (one for
each season for Grades 1-2 and Grades 2-3).
Each of these sets have 11" x 17" charts with
an illustrated math problem that follows a seasonal theme.
They are good practice in using what I like to "math
language."
Thinking Skills for Grades 1-2, Grades
3-4 and For Grades 5-6.
Each of these sets have 44 illustrated charts
and accompanying student pages that encourage children to
think critically and logically.
They have another set for upper grades called
Math Brainbusters for Graders 3-4 and Grades 5-6.
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Names Nook
Place each child's name in a three-ring pencil case along
with the letter tiles or magnetic letters with which to
build the name. Children can match pictures of their
classmates with their printed names, place the names in
alphabetical order, and put together teacher created puzzles
of the child's name. Research shows that young children
quickly learn to recognize the names of their friends, so it
is appropriate to use names as anchors for learning
consonant sounds and for emergent writing.
Check Linda Dorn's Apprenticeship in
Literacy for extensive ideas for a Names Corner.
More suggestions and web links:
It's the Name of the Game
Suggestions for Center
Names Nook Menu
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Origami
Corner
When our first graders were
studying Japan, the teachers put out an origami center. The
students had to follow directions to create their origami. |
Overhead
Projector
I liked to use cut up poetry transparencies
so the children can rebuild the poem and read it from the
white board. I have seen teachers place the whole poem on
the overhead projector and students are required to use
whiteboard markers to highlight the rhyming pairs (different
colors for each pair).
Transparent letter tiles or magnetic letters
may be used to build the words of the week, spelling words,
or word family words.
There are commercial games available that use
transparent sheets for reading activities.
Students may also use an overhead pen to
practice writing and reading high frequency words.
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Painting
Place
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Play Dough
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Pocket
Place
Most of our K-3
classrooms have fifteen or twenty colorful pocket charts (in
many shapes and sizes) that are used for a variety of
purposes: poem of the week, vocabulary, chants, charts,
sequencing, sentence building, sorting pictures and words,
etc. However, Pocket Place is an area set aside for a
specific task for differentiated instruction.
One of my favorite uses
is for my largest pocket chart. My groups love to play
Junior Jeopardy, a game that is suggested in Words Their
Way. To save time and energy for the teachers on my
staff and in my university classes, I have created print
ready cards for different spellings for each vowel. (For
instance: ay, ai, a-e, a, etc.) Each game comes with
directions, clues and cards and a cheat sheet with all of
the answers for the teacher! These games are available on
the Word Way page of this website.
Interactive pocket
charts:
Bunny in a flower pot
Valentine Hearts
The children follow the directions and make an art project.
If they don't read and follow the directions, the project
often doesn't work out.
Storing sentence strips is easier than it was
when I first started using centers in the sixties (I'm
showing my age!) There are commercially produced sentence
strip containers with dividers or you may use wall paper
paste trays that are placed below the pocket chart for easy
access.
This is an excellent place to reinforce story sequence.
Children can reconstruct stories, songs or poems that were
introduced during shared reading and then reread them with a
pointer. For nonreaders or emergent readers, use rebus
stories.
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Publishing
Place
Gather a large
assortment of publishing materials, including writing tools
(colored pens, pencils, markers), a variety of writing
paper, stationery, postcards and envelopes (colors, sizes,
and shapes), blank books, journals, dictionaries, writing
prompts, editing posters, charts describing what good
writers do, checklists, and construction paper for covers.
You may also want to include samples of good writing,
rubrics, and picture book samples of letter writing,
journals, and postcards (see writing bibliography).
Work in progress needs
to have a designated spot and so does work that is ready to
be checked by the teacher for publication on the computer.
Organization and storage of materials is critical to the
success of Publishing Place. Children need to know exactly
where to put things. Labeled trays and bins are helpful.
Placement of this center should allow for visibility and
easy access to the classroom names chart, alphabet chart and
the word wall.
What do they write about? Children may write responses to
stories, retellings and/or summaries, or copy changes of old
favorites. This is also a good place for writing and
publishing personal narratives.
Directions
Task Board Sign
Classroom Center Sign
Five W's Chart
Flip Book for Retelling
My Little Book of Words for
Special Spelling
My Little Book of Words for
Writing
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Puzzle
Place
This is a good place for
alphabet jigsaw puzzles for younger students and word search
puzzles for older students. Again, I like to have a variety
to hold student interest and I would suggest large floor
puzzles as well as table sized puzzles. After completing an
alphabet puzzle, allow students to use a pointer to "read"
the puzzle, touching each letter as they recite the
alphabet.
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Read the Room
or
Write the Room
Provide a wide variety
of colorful pointers for children to use while reading text
that is displayed around the room. They may reread familiar
student generated books, environmental labels, word walls,
ABC charts, and pocket chart displays.
I like to hold students accountable for their time in this
rather informal activity. I provide a "Write the Room" form
for them to record and illustrate words read from the
classroom environment. When they come to their reading
group, they read the words to the group/teacher.
Task Board Sign
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Write the Room
Read the Room Menu
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Rhyming
Road
If you have a poem of the week, poetry anthologies, or work
with Mother Goose, place the poems in the Rhyming Road
center. Add a pointer or two and let them practice what is
now "familiar" reading.
Copy the poems on
sentence strips and have students place them in the proper
sequence before rereading.
Combine the overhead
projector and the rhyming center in a portable center. Make
two transparencies of the same poem. Use one on the overhead
in conjunction with the white board. Students can highlight
and read rhyming words on the board. Cut the second
transparency into strips for children to sequence and read
from the white board. Store strips in a labeled three-ring
pencil case that fits in a binder along with the
transparency of the poem in its entirety. I usually put out
one poem to avoid mix ups, but this solves storage and
management issues.
Options: poetry charts, poetry cards, poetry books, class
books of poems, and poem of the week to illustrate and add
to individual anthologies.
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Sand Table
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Science
Station
Students are required to learn how to do observational
writing in science. I love what one of my first grade
teachers, Carol Filloon, did with this one. During one
period of study, she had a different pet brought in each
week by a student (it could be the classroom pet). Two
students equipped with clipboards and recording sheets
parked themselves in front of the cage or aquarium to
observe and record. It was wonderful! The teacher provided
related books for students who were interested in looking
into their topic a little bit further. Of course, this was
not the only way she used this center, but it was one that
was well remembered by all who saw it happening!
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Sentence
Building
There are many different
ways to create your own sentence building center, but I took
the easy way out: buying ones that are ready made.
Suggestions include:
©Lakeshore's Sentence Building Pocket Chart, which is
color coded for success. This is an example of completing
cloze sentences, filling in the blanks and using context
clues. I add student names to the nouns pack.
©Lakeshore's Make a Super Sentence Flip Boards. Students
can build hundreds of sentences with these color coded
sentence parts. Each kit comes with three different boards
and a teacher's guide. Children love to use these because
they so often come up with something so preposterous that it
gives them the giggles. I particularly like this kit for
second language learners who need to learn about sentence
structure.
Word stamps are
available for children to stamp and illustrate sentences.
A commercial product,
Tub-O-Words and More Tub-O-Words has high frequency words
and punctuation marks for building sentences. (I also use
them for sorting by parts of speech or orthographic
features, syllables, etc.)
Build a Sentence
Sing a Super Sentence
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Sequencing Corner
This is the place to put
sequencing activities that you create or buy. It will
reinforce comprehension of stories, sequencing lines in a
memorized poem, science concepts, etc. If you look at
Evan-Moor's Alternatives to Worksheets, you can find
hands-on ideas for crafty presentations of first, next, then
and finally for retelling.
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Sewing
Center
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Shopping
City
Shopping City is a great place to use your environmental
print and to allow beginning writers to use their knowledge
of sounds and letters to create "shopping lists." Provide a
shopping cart (available at many stores), grocery items
(nonperishable plastic and paper, of course), catalogs, and
wish lists for recording the items your students would like
to buy.
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Suggestions
Shopping List
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Social
Studies Street
Good use for Daily Geography. Once you have
finished several days lessons with the students and modeled
how you want it completed and reported, the students can go
on their own. Also good to use with Rookie Reader map and
globe books or books about different countries.
Students enjoy working with the globe and
maps. This is also a great way to get those social studies
standards in that you don't have enough time for!
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Classroom Center Sign
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Sort Street
Sorts, sorts, and more
sorts! Use Words Their Way and All Sorts of Sorts
for ideas for developmental word and picture sorts,
reproduce the appropriate pages on vellum, and laminate for
use. I store mine in labeled three-hole pencil cases for
easy access in a notebook. Full color picture and word sorts
are available in Word Way. These sorts address a variety of
orthographic features, grammar (nouns and verbs) and other
skills that I have found lacking in some of my students. I'm
picky and prefer pictures in color and that's why I have
developed my own. Enjoy!
This particular activity
teaches students to look for patterns and to make
connections. Brain research suggests that we can learn
through analogy: What do already know that will help us with
this new word?
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Spelling
Space
If children understand
how the spelling system works, then they can come to feel
they have some control over it.
Spelling Space would be a good place for
students to practice their spelling words. You may choose to
use special worksheets for your students so that they have
the opportunity to practice, cover, guess and check. There
are many commercially produced programs that have spelling
practice sheets.
This would also be a good place to use
magnetic letters or tiles to practice building words within
a word family, adding suffixes to root words and practicing
spelling rules such as drop the e before adding -ing or
doubling the consonant.
Task Board Sign
Classroom Center Sign
Spell Well Task Cards
Spelling Charts
Spelling Memory Tips
How to
Help Children Learn to Spell
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Let them see writing
published and displayed.
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Focus on spelling at
appropriate times during the writing process.
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Teach children that
"spelling" is a strategic thinking process, not a memory
activity.
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Teach children when, where,
and why spelling matters.
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Encourage any attempt
students make to spell.
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Help children to move to
whatever the next stage of developmental spelling is for
them.
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Provide information about
words when children need it.
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Help children to link words
into "word families" which have the same spelling
pattern.
From: Teaching Writing,
Phenix, p. 91
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Stamps Station
Letter
stamps, thematic stamps for "stamp-a-story," or any stamps
you happen to have can be used for making greeting cards,
story illustrations, words and patterning in math. |
Teacher
Trail
This designates the
teacher working with the guided reading group. Use it to let
your students know when you will be working with their group
so that they can pace themselves at their centers.
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Weekly
Reader Road
According to one
first grade teacher, this is a good center for rereading old
Weekly Readers for familiar reading and doing the back
puzzle page to check for comprehension. The students enjoy
"reading the newspaper" like their parents. Our local paper
also has a children's newspaper insert that I used to
laminate and collect for free reading. This center would be
a good spot for those, as well. |
Word Way
Word building is the
task required of children in Word Way. A teacher proudly
showed me her new word building center when we first began
looking at centers with literacy development in mind. She
had colorful magnetic letters and metal boards for her
children to work with, but when I quizzed her about what
words they were expected to build, she decided she needed to
be more explicit with her instructions. Were they required
to build spelling words, sight words, word family words? How
do you know what words they've built in the center? Where is
the accountability? Our students now know that they need to
record their efforts in a word building log on a daily
basis. In my classroom I use small baskets that I set up
ahead of time and I usually focus on orthographic "chunks"
that children find difficult when decoding and/or spelling.
This information is derived from two sources: John
Shefelbine's Basic Phonics Skills Test (California Reading
and Literature Results Project) and Johnston's Spelling
Inventory (Words Their Way).
Many commercial
products are becoming available to make our jobs easier. I
highly recommend the tiles from Educational Insights, Inc.
The tiles come in blends, vowel teams, short and long rimes,
diphthongs, and more. You can purchase a kit with word
building trays and task cards. Children need to look at
chunks in words in order to develop fluency and
automaticity. Too often we see them stuck at "spits and
starts," trying to produce every single grapheme's sound. We
all know that doesn't work!
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W.O.W.
Corner
or
Word Way
W.O.W. stands for Words of the Week. Our
first grade teachers focus on several new sight words each
week and add them to their word walls. This corner gives
children the opportunity to practice building the focus
words with a variety of tools. I have developed a
Working with WOW Words work
mat for students to use. Download and print, mount on
vellum, laminate and place in the center along with the
appropriate word tiles, magnetic letters and letter tiles.
We make sure to change
what we do with this often since what works one week may
bomb the next. We use concrete objects as well as paper and
pencil, crayon, water, noodles, wikki sticks, clay, etc.
anything and everything that makes them think they are doing
something different. We rainbow write, use cotton balls,
sand, pudding, and toothpicks. Any other ideas out there?
Task Board
Sign
Classroom Center Sign
Working With W.O.W. Words
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Writer's
Way
Writing Center Menu
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