Welcome!

UPDATED 7-11-08

On this page, I've described some our center activities. For the most part, morning center time is for literacy activities, but I do incorporate math when needed. When I do math groups, it is usually during the afternoon. Beginning about a year and a half ago, we began teaching guided reading during our centers block. In kindergarten, this is introduced as children become ready for it. Some children may begin it earlier than others. We have a leveled book room at our school that continues to grow, and this is where I get most of the books for my lessons.

Even though guided reading can take up a chunk of our centers time, I try to incorporate many of the activities described below as "finisher" activities at the end of a guided reading lesson, or I make them available during choice time in the afternoons. One goal I have in terms of the web page this year is to get some photos of these activities posted.

Running Centers: I divide the class into four groups for center jobs. Each group rotates through two assigned activities each day. On some days, the groups are assigned to work with me; other activities are done independently, with an instructional assistant, or with parent volunteers. If a center requires "paper work," the children take that home in their T.I.G.E.R. Books.

Teachers: There are some links at the bottom with my center labels and signs.

Sight Word Centers:

A few of the ideas for my sight word centers came from the terrific book Making Word Walls Work by Judy Lynch (published by Scholastic). This is the best book on word walls that I have found, teachers! It is available through Scholastic and also at amazon.com. In addition to sight word center activities, it includes a system for introducing, practicing, and displaying the words. It also has great sight word cards to reproduce for your word wall.

· Rainbow Writing: I put word cards featuring current and past sight words into a box with blank index cards and markers. The child chooses a word and writes it on an index card, whispering each letter as he writes it. He then chooses four other colors to trace over the word, again saying each letter as he writes it.
· Mix It, Fix It: I take magnetic letters needed to spell a sight word and put them in an envelope with the word printed on it. The child takes out the letters and spells the sight word, then writes the word on paper or an index card. I also do this another way, by putting a word list on a large magnetic board and letting the children find the needed letters on their own.
· Read the Room: The children use pointers to find sight words in the room. They can use regular pointers to find any word they know, or they can use our special "sight word pointers." The "sight word pointers" each feature one sight word on the wand, so the child has to look around the room for that word specifically.

These are the pointers that I have. They all came from www.lakeshorelearning.com

· Being the Teacher: I try not to do a lot of straight flashcard activities because a lot of children won’t pay attention to that. However, when a child gets to be the "teacher," flashcards don’t seem so boring. During this center, the children take turns being teacher and flash the cards to their "class."
· Sight Word Beanbag Toss: I got one of my old plastic graphing mats and wrote a sight word in each section. A child tosses a beanbag and says the sight word in the section where the bag lands. These are some of the recording sheets I use for this game. #1 #2
· Word Puzzles: I have various sets of sight word puzzles. The child puts together the pieces to spell the word and show a picture that spells that word. The words on these puzzles are not on our sight word list, but they are important consonant-vowel-consonant words (such as dad, fox, dog, cat) that practice our Open Court sounds and blending. Students sometimes record words on this sheet when they do this center.
· Stamp a Word: I put word cards at a table with our letter stamps, and the children choose a card, say the word, and say each letter of the word as they stamp it on paper or an index card.
* Color Word Match: This can be played independently or led by an adult. It can be laminated for repeated use or used as a cut-and-paste game. Game template

Alphabet/Phonics Centers:

· ABC and Rhyming Puzzles: We have a collection of puzzles that reinforce the letter names, sounds, and rhyming.
· ABC Bingo: A bingo game that reinforces letter names.
· Pocket Chart Sorting: Children sort pictures by the beginning sound/letter or by rhyming pattern.
· Starfall: This is a website that has a large collection of activities for each letter/sound of the alphabet. It also has stories that any child can read because the child just has to click on the words, and the computer will read them for her. http://www.starfall.com
· Story Stamps: These are picture stamps that the children use to accompany their own drawings. After the picture is complete, the children write a sentence or short story about their picture.

These are from Lakeshore Learning.
· Reading Center: The children can look at tub books and class books in our reading center.
· Writing Center: Children have a variety of drawing materials and papers to create their own stories.
· Clapping Words: Students choose an object or picture from the box, clap the name of the object to see how many syllables it has, and write the number on the recording sheet.
· Pocket Chart Reading: The children use pointers to read an interactive chart or poem that we have practiced in class ahead of time. They can also look for sight words in the poems in the chart, count the words in the poem, look for rhyming words, etc.
· Magic Sound Tub: We use a Magic Sound Tub filled with different objects to practice our Imagine It! sounds. We sort the objects by beginning sound (and sometimes ending sound) into appropriate letter tubs. The set I have is from Lakeshore Learning.
· Soft ABC’s: This center has stuffed fabric letters with pictures that stick to the fabric. The children sort the pictures and stick them on the letter that says the object’s beginning sound.
· Alphabet Beads: The children can sort letters by uppercase/lowercase, match uppercase/lowercase letter pairs, or string the beads to make words.

From Lakeshore Learning.
· Listening Center: The children choose a book with a cassette tape and listen to the story on a personal walkman while they look at the book.
· Word Family Sliders: This game helps to practice word family "chunks." Each chunk family has a picture card of a word that represents it (for example, "bug" for the –ug chunk). The children stick a card with beginning sounds into the slot in the picture and slide it along to make different words in the word family. For the –ug family, they would make "bug, plug, snug."

From Lakeshore Learning.
· Nursery Rhymes: The children use pointers to read familiar rhymes that we have practiced in class. I also have nursery rhyme envelopes with character cards inside that the children use as prompts to retell the rhyme to each other. Also, there are nursery rhyme rebus sheets that tell the rhyme using some words but with picture prompts included in the sentences.
· Alphabet Dough Stampers: The children stamp the letters into Playdo. Good for letter recognition, fine motor, and spelling words.

From Lakeshore Learning.

· ABC Beanbags: The children use these to work on alphabetical order and letter/sound recognition.

From Lakeshore Learning.
· Missing Sound Stamps: These stamps have a picture with the word below it. One sound in the word is missing with a blank in its place. The child stamps the word, figures out if the missing sound is at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, then writes the missing sound in the blank.

Word Family Centers:
· Flip Books: The flip books practice word families. They are made by taking an index card and writing a chunk (such as –at) on it. Then smaller pieces of cards with beginning consonants are stapled on top of the chunk card. The child can flip the consonant beginning sounds and make word. For example, using the –at chunk, they could make the words cat, sat, pat, mat, fat, etc.
· Egg-citement: This center also concentrates on word families and uses plastic eggs that break apart. I write a word family chunk (such as –og) on the "fat" half of the egg. On the skinner half, I write several beginning consonants. The children can then turn the skinny part of the egg to align different beginning sounds to make words with the chunk. Using the –og chunk, they might make the words, dog, fog, and log.
* Word Family Mats: Each word family has a mat made out of a picture of a word in that word family. (For example, the "-ig" word family mat is a pig.) I have a baggie with magnetic letters for each mat. I include the letters that make up the word chunk (for the "-ig" family, it would be "i" and "g"), plus five or six other letters that can be the onset, or beginning sound, of a word in the word family. (For "-ig," I have a "b," "d," "f," and "w.") For some word family mats, I include some letters for blend/digraph onsets as well. I include the blend "cl" in the "-ock" family bag. When I include blend or digraph letters, I connect with Scotch tape so that the children know that they go together. I bought my word family mats, but you can make your own by enlarging clipart and adding a textbox with the word chunks at the top.
From Lakeshore Learning.

Math Centers:

· Roll and Count: I have a variety of game boards that go with this activity. Two children choose a game set. Each game includes the game boards, fun erasers to use as counters, and a pair of dice. The children take turns rolling the dice, counting the dots, and putting that many erasers down on the game board spots. The child who reaches the finish line first wins. I printed several of these workmats from the Hubbard's Cupboard site several years ago. They are not available on there now, but she has a link where you can find them.
· 100 Chart or Number Line Counting: Using pointers, the children point to the numbers as they count on the chart or number line.

* Number Fishing: We play two different versions of this game. One focuses on 1-10, while the other focuses on 1-20. The 1-10 game comes with learning mats. I couple the 1-20 game with my big fabric number line. When a child fishes for a number, he names it and then lays it in the correct position on the number line. You could also make these with fish-shaped notepad paper and laminate them. Then put a paperclip on them so that the magnet on the "fishing rod" would pick them up. Here are recording sheets for the games. 1-10 1-20

From Lakeshore Learning.
· Pattern Blocks: The children use the blocks to build pictures on the floor. Sometimes we use picture cards so that the children have to match the correct shape and color of blocks on the card to form the picture.
· Patterning: The children use linking cubes, picture cards, links, wooden beads, or teddy bear counters to copy or create pattern types that we have practiced in lessons.
· Calendar Words: The children use word cards featuring the days of the week and months of the year. They put the cards in order in a pocket chart and use magnetic letters to spell the words. Day cards: #1 #2 #3 #4 Game Month cards: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7
· Number Puzzles: I have several different types of number puzzles. The children match numbers with sets of objects and numbers with their matching number words.
· Playdough Numbers: The children make skinny Playdough "snakes" and use them to form numbers. I have laminated number flip books to aid this center.
· Number Bingo: The adult calls out a number and shows a card with that number on it. The children put a counter on their bingo card if they have that number.
· Sorting Objects: The children sort objects by color, size, texture, etc.
· Number Beanbags: The children use these to practice number and number word recognition, and ordering numbers 1-20.

From Really Good Stuff.
· Tangrams: A tangram is made of seven shapes – 2 large triangles, 1 medium triangle, 2 little triangles, 1 parallogram and a square. When put together, they form a big square. However, they can be used to make all kinds of picture shapes, such as rabbits, cats, boats, etc. I have lots of diagrams of pictures made with tangrams. The children look at these and use their tangram pieces to try to make the objects. It is interesting to see how much the children improve at this activity as the year progresses!
· Number Dough Stampers: The children stamp the numbers into Playdo. This is a fun way to practice number recognition!

Science Centers:

· Magnifying Glasses: I have laminated sheets with reduced-size clipart on them (I got my first set at Kelly’s Kindergarten website and made others myself). The children use the magnifying glasses to look at the photos and see what they are. We also put objects in the box and look at parts of them close-up with the magnifying glasses.
· Magnets: I put various objects in the box, and the children try to pick them up with magnets.
· Magnet Balls: The children use magnetic paddles to move the magnet balls around a tray and try to hook them together, pick them up, etc. This is a favorite!

Center Time