Organization Week Day 2: Literacy Centers

Today is day 2 of Mrs. Patton's Organization Linky Party week. I didn't take pictures of ALL my Work Stations but I think I got the ones that showcase some organization. I thought I would start off with my Work Station/ Center's system.

First, I have to remind you that I color code my room. Red is for kindergarten & blue is for first grade. Here is a closer view.

 

I take pictures of my students at the start of the year & order several prints. If you remember I have 4 groups, 2 kinder & 2 first grade. They go to workstations/ centers in pairs or alone. The set of pictures on the left of the station/ center icons is a class & the set on the right of the station/ center icon is another class. At the end of the day I move the cards down and rotate the one at the bottom back to the top. When my students are not using work stations/ centers I flip the cards over. This helps them to know what to expect & helps me because I don't have to answer "Are we going to work stations today?" I was going to post my work station/ center icons for you to down load but I can't find them. I will have to recreate them and post them at a later time.

Here is a view at some of my work stations/ centers.

Charts & Poems

Every other week my students learn a new poem or song. I print these up & have them laminated. When the class has learned the poem, hopefully, at the end of the second week, I put it in the charts & poems workstation. only keep a handful of poems in the pocket at a time. If my student have too many options they begin to mistreat our tools. The pocket is just 2 file folders taped to the wall with masking tape. I use stools, a hand me down from another teacher, instead of chairs because we can stack them & they take up less room. To the left in the clear pockets, another hand me down from a friend, is where we store all of our pointers.

Listening

I think this center is self explanatory. I put the player on top of a crate on its side. I keep the book my students are listening to, the matching CD in a case, 2 headphones& a splitter in a basket from Targets Dollar Spot. All this goes in the crate & viola, instant listening center.

Pocket Chart

My pocket chart is attached to the back of my Reading station's/ class library's bookshelf. Then I got a big basket from Target to keep all my materials in. Inside the basket you will find cubes with letters on them, another hand me down. These are a BIG hit with the kinder kids, I sometimes have to out law them because they get VERY loud. They are supposed to make words with them, but often make towers when I am not looking. The pencil boxes hold word sorts & alphabet cards to be sorted & matched. This summer when the pencil boxes are on sale again I am going to buy a ton of them for this reason. In the back you will see two folders should not be there. They are a remnant of a failed storage attempt, too expensive & the pieces fell out.

Now that you have had a look into my room tell me what do you think about it. Do you like it? What would you do differently? Oh and don't for get to visit the other classes that have linked up at 

Mrs. Patton's Patch.

Ms. M