[frecklejuice]

I am thinking of trying a new (to me) method of doing centers. I am thinking of creating a center for each of my reading groups. I would have a tiger center, an elephant center, etc. The tigers would go to the tiger center every day but would have a different activity geared to the level of those students. Please give me your thoughts about this.

[edistonian]

I can't imagine having to think of different activities for each group and have to change them everyday. I love doing workstations! I was sold on them after I read Literacy Workstations by Debbie Diller. I have been doing them for years now and the kids love them. I have lots of choices in each station, so it is differentiated and I don't have to change them very often. My children like having choices.

[runamouth]

I have ten different regular stations in my room that the students rotate through plus my two pull out groups, guided reading staion for me and guided writing for my assistant.
I have these stations:
1. ABC station 2.Big Books 3. Word Family/Poem 4. Computer 5. Library 6. Word Wall 7. Phonics /Word Work 8. Pocket Chart/Journals 9. Sensory/Discovery 10. Listening
Students rotate through these centers and complete their colored folder activity. The colored folders have differentiated work in them for my high, medium and low groups. When students come to me they bring their crate which has their differentiated material in these the crates either have a picture of a horse, high group, lion, low group or a monkey on them. Inside the crate are games or other activities that the students can do when they finish their work early or finish their station early. After guided reading instruction we play a game or activty from the crate so that when the students use their crates independently they know what to do.

I hope I explained this so you can understand. This works for me

[starley]

Another huge Debbie Diller fan. I don't have the exact set up as she describes, but I have modified to fit my classroom. We could be in stations all day. I teach very little whole group, so stations full of choices are wonderful.

[MissHopeful]

I am voting FOR your idea because I could see it being more effective for student learning. The differentiation is so much more endless that way, and I think organization would be a breeze for you and the kids. The only thing that would be tough, as a PP mentioned, is finding enough activities however there would be some activities you could swap. IE on Monday the low group might do a particular word sort, and on Tuesday you might move the same wordsort to a higher group but have them enrich it, by maybe breaking up the words into syllables or identifying more about the words that way?

I think the students could really benefit from this, they would always know where they needed to be and would really bond with their groupmates. I think this method sounds incredibly purposeful and I WOULDN'T feel daunted by the task of creating all of the different centers.

Also you could keep the same materials at a center for a whole week and have the students do different things with the materials each day. For example, you have some sight words or vocabulary words on index cards. Monday they alphabetize them, Tuesday they break them into syllables, Wednesday they sort them by part of speech (or whatever - I'm thinking according to my own class here) AND the differentiation would be in the difficulty of the words AND the activities. A low group might have basic sight words they're still familiarizing with and working on phonics stuff, a higher group might have tougher words and be working with vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension using the words. ETC

I like it. I say try it... see what you can do!

[angelajw]

I have tried this in the past. One trouble that I found was that the children in the low group had a hard time staying on task when they were all grouped together. When I mix the groups I try to have all abilities represented. The kids know who to follow.b This sets your expectations higher for the low kids, thus they perform. I challenge my higher kids when they meet with me.

[booba]

Is it possible to clarify and explain design and management learning centers as skills?
I want to recognize them,but as skills . please it Is very important to me.
thank you

[doc2000]

What kind of stations do you set up and how are they differentiated?

[optimist05]

how do you explain/post your students path's during centers? Do you have a pocket chart for the Center Mgmt? I will teach K/1 combo & since they can't really read yet, I wasn't sure if I should have a chart to show what centers they are assigned to that day...or I could have text with pictures

[pirateguy]

To begin the year with centers, I take it very slow for awhile. I create with my kids a chart of what I should SEE and what I should HEAR. At the bottom, I put what " I CAN".
Students help create and tell me things that I write down what is expceted from them. From there, I refer back to those posters a ton!!
I do have to go back every few weeks for a refresher course in what is expected.

There is a book by Fontas and Pinnell (spelling).