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Low Maintenance Literacy Centers

Linking this today with Classroom Freebies!

I have to admit to you that I have always struggled with literacy centres.  I'll get on the bandwagon and have really great ones for about a month, the get burnt out and start to slide, until eventually we are not doing them!  Not cool.  I know!

After reflecting about my failures, I discovered the reason for my lack of literacy centre commitment is because of all the work involved in preparing them.  Last year a colleague of mine said,

"if you spend more time making the literacy centres than the students do using them, there's something wrong".

DING DING DING DING....so true! This year I'm determined to have really great RICH learning activities for my students that don't involve a lot of work to prepare.  Here's how I'm doing it.

1.  Be organized from the start.  This just works for me.  I have to have a plan as to how I'm going to organize the students, how they will rotate through the centres, and how I will organize the materials.

  

You can pick up a FREE copy of this board HERE.

2.  Allow for student choice.  When my students are at the working with words centre, they are choosing materials from our room, and making them into words (usually word wall words, but they can be from anywhere).  Here are some examples of materials student choose from:

-  river rocks
-  snap cubes
-  wiki stix
-  beans
-  pipe cleaners
-  magnetic letters

This centre is about as low maintainence as it comes because I fill the buckets at the beginning of the year and students choose. From them there on out.  These materials are also used for math instruction, but that's for another blog post!

Another centre allowing for choice is the writing centre.  I'm a firm believer in allowing students to choose their own writing topics, and writing styles.  It is really important that students write about topics that are meaningful to them.  

At the beginning of the school year, we spend quite a lot of time discussing possible topics,and exploring writing forms.  By Christmas students are more than ready to write independently.  Believe it or not, the boys in my class LOVE writing because it becomes a chance for them to express the ideas that roll around their minds and hearts.  It's a beautiful thing!







3. One special centre.  As part of my rotation, I have one "special centre", which is usually a typical literacy centre with printouts and laminating involved.  This centre changes each week, and I try to make it target an area of student need.  Students love the novelty of this centre, and I figure that one centre to make per week is no big deal!  

Here's an example of a special centre for us, called "Fishing for Sight Words".  I will write more on it later, and provide a freebie:)

Happy March Break everyone!  Make sure to get some rest!

Kylie