[juniperjen]

I teach second grade and I'm going to implement work stations during my language arts block this year. I'm using the system Debbie Diller describes in her book, Making Centers Work.

My question for those of you who use work stations (or centers) is how do you introduce work stations to the students at the beginning of the year? Do you introduce one station a day? Do you then have them practice that station, and if so, how do you do that? Or do you first introduce/explain the procedures for every station (as well as how to rotate to each station) over the period of a week or two and then begin the actual station rotation to give the kids time to practice/to allow you to observe students in each station?

Sorry if that was confusing! I'm really excited about using work stations this year but I'm completely lost when it comes to deciding how I'm going to introduce them to my students!

Thank you!

[FossilFan]

When I introduce stations, I teach them 4 at a time. I introduce the stations during whole group instruction. Then I divide the students up into 4 groups and have them rotate through those stations. Usually during stations I am conferencing with students or working with a reading group, but during this intro period my focus is on teaching the students my expectations for station time. I usually spend about a week working on introducing my stations and teaching the class my expectations for this period of time.

[FinallyWritin]

I try to make sure we play 1 game as a whole group so everyone knows how to play. Then I add that game as 1 station. I also make sure I do something simple with spelling (sometimes even using words from the year before). So those 2 stations don't need me. What will be my reading station gets some instructions from me and then I leave it (in the beginning) to check on everyone else. For the 4th station I usually do a word search or something the kids have done before. As we do things as a whole group I begin incorporating more educational stations and I can stay with my reding group throughout the rotation.