Literacy Centers/Stations/Daily 5

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I have wanted to change my centers for some time now. Our school implements The Daily 5 classroom routines.  By the time students get to second grade they are very familiar with the routines.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Daily 5 and I love how easy it was for most students to jump back into the routine.  However, my students took advantage of the familiarity and management at times was difficult.  So this year I am going to try something different. 

  

So here is the plan that I have come up with.   I have found that students love the seasonal books and activities that we do because they seem special because we only bring out those books once during a particular time of year.  I hope to continue with the excitement and make the centers theme specific.  After the first five weeks of school I hope the centers will take on non-fiction topics.  I plan to keep the centers in a storage box like this.

My plan is for four students to work out of the literacy station box for an entire week.  From this box they will find everything they need to work on for the hour rotation we have for our small groups.  If I have four guided reading groups then one person from each group will be at the box.  I believe I will need five boxes to start the school year.  That is only if I have 20 students or less.  All five of the boxes will be similar in the skills the students will be practicing.  This will make it easier for me to introduce the literacy station boxes and students will get plenty of practice before we move to different skills.  

The first box that I have completed is a “School” literacy station box.

Inside the box will hold books for Read to Self:  Each student will have a tic tac toe board they will need to complete for the week.  The idea of the tic tac toe board was taken from Jen Ross of The Teacher’s Cauldron when she posted something similar with Dr. Suess books.  This will allow for accountability with this part of the Literacy Station.  Students must read three books for the week.  They may choose any three books from the nine in the box.  Students will be required to turn in their tic tac toe board each Friday. 

. 

Also included are books, poems, reader’s theater, etc that students will Read With Someone.   These items will be placed inside zippered bags so they will be kept separate.  Partners will be within their group.

Students will have 5 activities they must complete for Word Work during the week.  These are skills students will practice independently.  At first they will be review skills from first grade.  As time progresses they will become skills that has already been taught and students can practice independently.  For this box I have chosen a Back to School ABC Activity from Ms. Kilburn's Class as our first activity.  This is ABC order to the first level and students should only need a quick review.  The remaining activities come form my back to school pack.  They are pictured below.

 

 

. 

 There are Extra Items in the box for the students to work on when the required work is complete.  Some of these items are the Create a Sentence, Roll and Read, and Vocabulary Dominoes from by Back to School Literacy Centers.

The box will also contain items the students can choose for Work on Writing.  For the first week we will work on writing a friendly letter.

At this time I have no plans to include Listening to Someone with this station.

 Does anyone take requests to make literacy centers?  I am running out of time and I would gladly pay to have some of the centers made.  Please email me at mechele.barrow@gmail.com if you take requests.