Welcome Fall into the Classroom

It is officially October, which to me, finally feels like the beginning of the fall. It is such a fun time of the year for the students, and I encourage you to incorporate fall into your classroom.

If your Kindergarteners are anything like mine, they have been talking about the Pumpkin Patch and Halloween since the beginning of September. Anything about fall or Halloween makes them so excited, so why not use learning activities around what they are exciting about.

Teachers Pay Teachers has some awesome FREE resources that you can use for center time during both ELA and Math.

We recently just completed a book that can be used in both ELA and Math. The students worked on recognizing words, recognizing numbers in different ways, and worked on writing, cutting, and gluing. The students thoroughly enjoyed reading the story, and counting the different Fall objects throughout the book.

The only negative thing about the book is it took a while for the students to complete. I would recommend reading the story during small group time, and letting the students work on the book during a center rotation, either during Math or ELA. We also did wait until another day to cut out the hands holding numbers. I knew that this would take them a long time to complete.

You can find a copy of Pumpkin Counting Book by The Reading Nook here.

Continue to follow the blog and look out for more Fall activities your students will love, and so will you!

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Differentiated ELA Center Rotation

As I mentioned in Center Rotations Ideas for Every Classroom, I like to do a portion of my center rotations that are very differentiated and focus on what the students need to learn. This year, however, I am trying something a tad new, and I think I have fallen in love with how it is going to work.

The center rotation that I do a lot of differentiation in is called "Boxes". This center is geared towards skills that the students need to work on. When the students come to the center, they pick a box that they would like to work on that is the color that they were given. Since it is the beginning of the year, I have not made the centers very differentiated. I have kept the centers focused on what I believe the students need to work on, like ABC order, sequencing, rhyming, etc. Each box is labeled with a number. Because the centers are simple, it also helps the students learn the procedures.

After they are finished with their "Box" they are checked by myself or my assistant (who is amazing!). They then self evaluate themselves on the center that they were doing on their form that is seen below.  This form that they use is also a great way for the students to keep up with what number they have completed. One of the areas on the form is Computers, where they can play educational reading games. Over the course of two weeks, their goal is to finish all ten boxes that they are assigned and computer time. 

The form is a new part of my center routine, so I am excited to see how they self reflect on their learning.

How do you do differentiate learning in your classroom? Comment below to share your ideas.

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Center Rotation Ideas for Every Classroom

As we know, center rotations are a VERY big part of learning.  Not only does it allow the students to work on multiple skills in a short amount of time, it also helps teach independence.

My first year teaching, I was almost in tears trying to decide how centers would run in my classroom, and what would the centers focus on. I am lucky enough to work in a school that allows you to decide how you want centers to run. However, talking with my teammates made it difficult to decide how I wanted them to be run, due to everyone doing something different.

After several days, I knew that I needed the center rotations to be structured and timed. I decided that each center rotation would be approximately 15 minutes, and the students would work on skills suggested by Daily 5. My centers would focus on read to self, read with a partner, listen to a story, word work, and skills. (I do not go exactly by Daily 5, but use some of their concepts.)

Before I go into the centers that I use in my classroom, I want to discuss how I pull small groups. My mentor teacher suggested that I leave out "Meet with the teacher" for a center rotation. She said, that by doing this, I would be able to pull different groups daily, based off what they need to work on. One day, I would pull a groups for concept of print, and another day, I would pull groups for reading skills. I love being able to create new small groups each week to focus on what the students need to learn.

Below are the different centers that I use in rotations and a few ideas you can use for each.

Centers in Mrs. Peay's Class

Poster from Sister Teachers East Coast on TPT

• Word Work
• Words Their Way: Focuses on individual student skills; for example, one student may be working on recognizing sounds, where another student is working on the word family -at. 
• Read to Self/Listen
• Find a leveled book to read
• Retell a story
• Read the pictures
• RazKids (great app for listening and reading stories)
• Writing 



Reading Bungalow on TPT

• Sight word work
• string a sight word (can be done with pipe cleaners and letter beads)
• write sight word on white board
• roll a sight word
• student calls out sight word, and group writes the word
• Play-Doh sight word
• Writing a sentence with the sight word for the day
• Skills
• The skills center will be discussed in detail in an upcoming blog. Be on the lookout!

Last year, the students were only able to do 3 center rotations a day. They were required to read to self for one center rotation each day. For the remainder of the centers, they would do them twice a week, and Friday would be make-up day for the students who had not completed their work. Below is a picture of how I had my center displayed for the students. 

If you need any help with setting up your centers, I would love to help and share ideas! Good luck with setting up your centers! 

Don't forget to share this blog and follow by email if this has been helpful! 

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