Literacy Centers in the Primary Grades: Routines, Organization & Ideas
Vložit
- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- Welcome! If you are starting or improving literacy centers in your classroom, I hope you found this video helpful. I did my best to link everything below, but if I missed anything or you have a question, please leave a note in the comments!
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @theliteracyteacup and click subscribe so we can stay in touch!
✰ L I N K S ✰
Word Work:
Phonics I-Spy: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Look Alike Words: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Ms. Giraffe Bundle: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Word Ladders Book: www.amazon.com/Daily-Word-Lad...
Phonics Task Cards: www.teacherspayteachers.com/S...
Writing:
Ms. Giraffe Bundle: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Paragraph Scramble: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Writing Center: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Flex (Handwriting):
Handwriting Letter Pages: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Read It, Fix It, & Write It: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
One-Page Crafts: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Heart Words/Fluency:
Heart Words Worksheets: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Mystery Word Cards: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Fluency Folders: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Fluency Game: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Lalilo (FREE Phonics Program): lalilo.com
Epic Books!: getepic.com
Center Slides inspired by: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
Center Folder Cover: www.teacherspayteachers.com/P...
♫ M U S I C ♫
Blue Whale Music: • Acoustic Upbeat - Insp...
The one thing I dislike about standard education is all the cutesy pics and fonts. I really appreciate Montessori principles where children develop appreciation for real world imagery and are treated like little adults. When I used to teach, I used my graphic design background to create all my materials. I only used illustrations that resembled life-like, not necessarily realistic. I used font that was simple and beautiful, never cutesy or child-like. Basically, everything emulated an adult world but scaled down to children size. The students felt special every time they entered the room and they treated everything with care because they subconsciously realized that the items were to be handled with care. Just like they would with grownup things.
This video was sooo so so super helpful! I’ve been searching for centers for students to work independently and struck gold with this one!
Thanks for sharing your classroom setup. I am glad to observe your reading and phonics assessment. I love those worksheets because they are exactly the practical skills that I have used on several occasions.
Please do another video!!! This was SUPER helpful!!!
I just found you and I’m so glad I did. I just finished my first year of 2nd grade. I’ve been watching some of your videos.
Thank you so much for a well organized and user friendly method for running literacy centers.
Thank you so much for these helpful tips! I am rethinking my literacy centres for next year and this gives me some really good ideas!
I'm so glad! Thanks for watching!
I’ve always struggled with small groups and centers. This video has been so helpful!
Me too
Thank you! I'm so glad you found it helpful!
Thank you so much! I am new to 2nd grade. I was a Kinder and 1st grade teacher for 6 six years. I love the folders from the dollar tree. I have Daily Five Folders with way too many pockets. This will be much easier for student's to become independent. Thank you again!
You are so welcome! You'll have such a great foundation for teaching second after working in kinder and first for so long. Have a great year!
I loved all of your suggestions! Wonderful video. I especially liked the idea of when you have the kids clean up you use not only your door bell - but a song as well… I may try this next year too…. Thank you… ☺️
Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful!
Question! What was your strategy for pulling kiddos to meet with you? How many times did each group meet with you per week?
VERY helpful!! Thank you so much for sharing!😊
Thank you so much! As a soon to be first year first grade teacher, this helps a lot!
I'm so glad it was helpful! First grade is a blast. Best of luck in your first year!!
I’m already thinking about how to change things up next year! Thank you so much for this ❤️
I'm so glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
What a great video!! Thank you for all the information, I felt really overwhelmed last school year. This video makes me feel like I could do this!! :)
You got this! I have definitely made changes throughout the years, too. It is always a work in progress!
Thank you for sharing this video! I wish I found it sooner !!!
This was so helpful! Thank you for sharing. I always have trouble planning the introduction of centers and the systems in the beginning of the year, if you have any ideas for that it would be interesting to see. Again, very helpful, I appreciate the time you put into this video :)
Thanks for watching! The biggest thing I have learned about the beginning of the year is to introduce things slowly and practice, practice, practice! Then, keep those high expectations consistent throughout the year. For example, you could introduce one center at a time and have the whole class practice. If they are too loud, off task, etc. start again from the beginning. Also, don't start small groups until they are really able to work independently, even if that means holding off for a while. It will be worth it in the long run!
You’re an amazing teacher!
Great video with very helpful tips! Thank you
very much.
You're so welcome! Thanks for watching :)
I absolutely loved this video! So much good info! Do you have your rotation slides or any of the other ideas you created available for purchase somewhere?
Great video! This has helped so much. Is there anyway you could explain how you find time to teach whole group to introduce new skills. It’s so hard for me to find time to do whole group and small group in the day!
Sure thing! I did my whole group instruction first thing in the morning (after morning meeting). It was about half an hour and we introduced the new skill, then practiced decoding in single and multisyllabic words, dictation with words and sentences, and mapping high frequency words throughout the week.
When thinking about my schedule, I found it helpful to designate a specific time for foundational reading skills like phonemic awareness, phonics, and sight words. Then, designate your literacy center time and integrate your vocabulary and comprehension instruction with science and social studies as much as you can. Hopefully, that makes sense and helps :).
Loved this video- thank you! I had a question about when you change out papers in their center folders. If a student has not finished all 4 papers in word work or writing, do you still give them the next 4 papers for the week or only supplement with 2 new papers? Do you send home the ones they didn't finish or just remove them and move on with new papers?
Also, do you find some kids rushing to get to the free choices? I guess I'm a little worried about this too. ;) Thanks!
How do you find the time to explain all the differentiated instructions to them?! Love that each student is getting their individual needs met during center time! This must take you so much time to prep!!
I think the key is keeping the activities consistent! Once I have explained the activity once, the task stays consistent and I just switch up the phonics pattern. I'm only explaining a new set of directions every once in a while. I prep the activities for each group when I am planning small group instruction, so it actually isn't too time consuming.
Great video. It was really interesting to see what you do.
Thank you!
I love your literacy center organization. I already purchased the dominoes from tpt and I can't wait to use them. Where did you get the colorful, small storage containers that you use to store the pieces to your activities?
I love your centers, do you do whole group instructions?
This is amazing. Thank you. 💕
How do you fit in whole group reading instruction and assessment that addresses grade level standards alongside this?
Any specific ideas as to how you might adapt this for 3rd grade?
Really appreciate it 😊
We did whole group reading during a separate block in the morning. That followed the phonics scope & sequence of our curriculum (for the most part) and included phonemic awareness activities, dictated word and sentence writing, syllabication practice, and mapping high frequency words. I have slowly been working on integrating more comprehension, vocabulary, and writing work with science and social studies to maximize time, too.
I haven't taught third grade, but these would be my thoughts... I would keep most of the centers the same, but probably focus more on grammar than handwriting and really focus on fluency. If your kids have a pretty strong foundation in phonics, you could start exploring word morphology more in word work, too!
Thanks for the great questions!
This video is so helpful! I have been searching the web for example schedules and this really helped. I never thought of heterogeneous groups- genius! My only question is… do you have a schedule for when you pull your small groups? For example, do you pull your ai pattern group 1st rotation on M-W, pull your highest group 2nd rotation on Thursdays, etc? If you did this, your students would probably always miss the same rotation right? Or is it random?
Do you have the links to all of your worksheets? So amazing!
Absolutely amazing video! I’m taking all the tips, lol do you have a math center video coming up soon?
Thank you! I'm glad it was helpful. With my move into a position in reading intervention, most of the videos will be literacy focused!
This is all really great information. I was wondering if you would recommend any adaptations to support ELL students.
Thank you so much!! I am so excited to start these centres with my grade 2/3 class. Is there a scope and sequence that you use as a general idea? I'm having a hard time finding something. Any advice would be appreciated!! I would love to see a video on how you plan your literacy block and the materials you recommend. :)
Yay! I tried to follow our ELA curriculum's scope and sequence for continuity, but I honestly wasn't a big fan of it. Christina Winters from Mrs. Winter's Bliss has a free scope and sequence that I like. She also has some great materials for small group. mrswintersbliss.com/a-phonics-scope-and-sequence-for-k-2/
With the finished work, once it is handed in on the Friday, do you then mark all of the worksheets? It would seem you have a lot of grading to do over the weekend. Do they then glue the sheets in their workbooks?
I really like your organisation and the cute fluency cards. Thanks for also mentioning to tell teachers to check that the worksheets should only be used if they have already taught that phonics focus. Some people don’t always do this.
On Fridays I pull the work out of the folders while the kids have free choice time and put it straight into their mailboxes. As I'm doing that, I glance at each page to make sure they did them correctly. If not, I will just call that kid over and have them correct it right then. I find that gives me a chance to talk through misconceptions they might have.
This was extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing. I look forward to your additional videos. I emailed the seller for the literacy folder cover. For some reason, I could not locate it. Good luck on your new job.
I'm glad it was helpful! As far as the folders, I actually bought that seller's Take Home Folder resource and then just put a text box over where it said "Take Home Folder" and wrote in "Literacy Center Folder". Hopefully, that helps!
Thank you so much for this ! Question, do you just check off their work for completion or do you actually grade?
Hi there, great video! As a teacher in the UK, I was wondering when it comes to writing, do you have standard set of genres that you teach in each year group (instructions, narrative, letters etc..) ? Are those genres taught as a whole class or in your small groups?
Very curious as to how our education systems differ :)
Hey! Our standards for writing are broken into narrative, expository, and opinion for all of the grades. They are just expected to do more complex writing as the years go on. I do most of my writing instruction whole group, but practice lots of dictation in small groups!
Amazing video!
Thank you!
You work with 2 groups a day?
I love word ladders. The higher kids can use the ones in the book that you showed. A lot of sellers on TPT have created easier resources that I also love!
Typically 2-3 groups. It just depends on how much time is needed. Yes, the word ladders are fun!
Would you share what your Friday rotations look like?
Wow! This is awesome! I have been reworking how I want to do my small group/station time and this is a HUGE help! I can't wait to see small group videos in the future. I am intrigued by all the centers being independent, and if you answered this in the video I'm sorry I missed it: do the kids get to work together at all or is it strictly quiet alone work? Also, would you be willing to share or sell your templates for center rotations?
Thanks for watching! Yes, the kids are definitely encouraged to work together and help each other out. However, we also practice doing that in a whisper voice so that the room still stays pretty quiet. Also, having the computer-based centers helps keep the overall noise level down because they have head phones on. My rotation slides were adapted from Mrs. Call's Campers' Daily Powerpoint Slides!
I am curious as to why you would call this center work when it’s really independent seat work that you allow the children to collaborate on. Can you elaborate?
This was soooo helpful! Maybe a stupid question, but I’ve gotta ask just to be clear: so you’re making like 5 copies of “x” sheet for the lows, 7 copies for the mods, etc? When do you prep for the following week?
That's not a stupid question at all! Pretty much! As I am planning for the next week's small groups, I also plan two independent activities for each group (writing & word work). That usually happens on Wednesday or Thursday. Then, I make copies on Thursday and put them into the folders on Friday.
Great video! I LOVE Miss Giraffe and Lalilo and so do my first graders :) What would you do if students who are pulled for teacher table don't finish their writing, word work, or heart words?
They have that time on Fridays to make up anything they haven't finished. However, there were occasionally kids that worked hard all week and just didn't finish because they were pulled for group quite a bit. In that case, I let them just do a portion of the independent work because I'd rather they get the one-on-one help in group over the independent work.
Love all of these great ideas! Thanks for sharing! Where did you buy those 3 pocket folders?
They are from the Dollar Tree! Most of the ones around me have them now as part of their back to school stuff.
@@theliteracyteacup4567 thanks so much! 😁
I loved this video!!! So helpful!!! Do you have a website where I can find your center slides?
I was wondering if you would be willing to share template or if I can find it for purchase somewhere?
Do you have videos on how you set up your slides?
This is amazing! Do you have your daily slides on teachers page teachers?
Thank you! I don't because they were closely adapted from Mayleen's. Her daily slides are linked in the description!
Amazing system! How many times a week do you meet with your literacy groups?
It depends on the group! My kids that are at or above grade level only see me 1-2 times per week. I see my striving readers 3, 4, or even 5 times depending on the week/class. That's the nice thing about not being part of the rotation! You can give more support to the kids that need it.
Thanks so much for your video!! How many small groups do you try to see each day?
I typically see 2-3 per day, depending on how long each takes!
K. Just want to make sure I understand physical set up of the centers. Are they physically moving to a center for each thing or are they going to the table, grabbing their materials and returning to their desks to work independently?
What is your flex station?
Is there somewhere that I can get the labels that you use inside the folders. Can you tell me what font that is? Thank you so much.
What a coincidence. I'm an intervention teacher going back into the classroom in 2nd grade.
Hi. What is the name ofnthe amy scott fluency game( with crabs) ? Did you purchase from tpt?
The tri-folders seem great for centers. Does your school pay for all the teacher pay teacher activities you purchase?
I really loved those folders! I am on the hunt for them again this year.
The school will pay for TpT products if we let them know far enough in advance, so the big bundles are great to request! Some of the smaller/less-expensive things I have just purchased myself.
Hello again 2 questions. Where did you buy the center cart? Where did you buy the wireless doorbell? Thanks
The cart is from Michael's and the doorbell from Amazon!
Hello! Can you please send me a link to the resources from Amy Scott with the sentences that students read in different voices / with different emotions? I can't find her site when I search online.
Do you have a link to your slide deck? :)
Where are the links for the worksheets that you use? How long is your guided reading/center time ? How many groups do you meet with a day?
As I understand it you see some children more than others in your small guided reading group. Is that correct? Therefore, it stands to reason that you will have more independent work, worksheets, writing, etc. for your higher level readers. Thank you for your help
I do see some kids more in small group! The higher level readers don't necessarily have more work quantity wise, but the tasks I am asking them to complete are more challenging.
Did I hear correctly that you have a TA? What I could do if I had one.
Maybe I missed it but for the heart words- are they differentiated? You had them in a drawer so I am assuming all students do the same one? Also I would love to see an overview of where you keep all of these resources for kids to pull from and how you organize them in the classroom.
The Heart Words are the same for everyone because the worksheets are just practice of the ones we have already mapped that week in whole group. I show where everything is stored in my classroom tour video! Thanks for watching :).
@@theliteracyteacup4567 thank you so much!!!
I know you said you do 2 centers a day but how many do you have going every day? All 8 or just 6 since that was what was on the board?
Awesome resources
Can you post here a link to the wireless doorbell keychain?
The wireless doorbell is from amazon, but the keychain is actually a hand sanitizer holder from Bath & Body Works! They fit the little remotes perfectly. Here is the doorbell link: www.amazon.com/dp/B00FR4YQYK?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder-t1_ypp_rep_k0_1_13&&crid=1KRLPCZBWUE2C&&sprefix=wireless+door
I was wonder do you recommend using the tri folders with Kindergarteners? Did the labels for the tri-folders come from Missing Tooth Grins? Thanks
I think you probably could use the trifold folders with Kinders! Having the pictures on the labels would probably help them stay organized. I made the labels for the folders just in the Avery website using some of the clipart from the covers.
Awesome, thanks
Thank You
Hello Awesome video Where did you find the activity sheets and the labels for the writing centers? Thanks
The labels are included with the writing center resource from Missing Tooth Grins! It is linked in the description :)
Thank You!
Thanks
Hello again, what did you use to put the cover sheet on the tri folders since they are plastic? Thanks
Hey! I just laminated the sheets and then stapled the top, bottom, and open sides along the edge.
@@theliteracyteacup4567 Thanks a bunch!
Amazing
Thank you 😊
I am so confused on how you are rotating the schedule so everyone meets each center by the end of the week. Can you please explain your thought process of the rotation???
Where is the link for the centre games (ex. diphthong dominoes).
Do you administer spelling tests on Fridays?
Yes... kind of! We do lots of dictation practice throughout the week in whole and small groups. On Friday, we have a "spelling test" of words that include the phonics pattern from that week and previously-taught patterns. However, the kids don't know which words it will be ahead of time. That let's me know if they have actually learned how to apply the spelling pattern, not just memorized a list of words. Hopefully, that answers your question. :)
@@theliteracyteacup4567 THIS is how I want my first grade team and I to do "spelling tests" this year, but I'm worried there would be push back from admin and parents. Do you have any advice for getting them onboard?
Is there a natural consequence for kiddos who don’t finish the center work even on Friday’s catch up day/time?
Good question! The vast majority do finish because they want to be able to play during free choice. However, I did have a couple that would have to miss out on activities Friday afternoon, like an art project or game to finish.
@@theliteracyteacup4567 thank you! as a second year teacher, I’m still trying to figure out those natural consequences if work is not completed in time. Did you have free choice daily or just on Friday afternoons?
Do you have these center slides for purchase?
They are pretty closely adapted from the Daily Powerpoint Slides from Mrs.Call's Campers! I just changed the colors and layout a little in Powerpoint :)
I have been watching this video over and over again because I think that this is really cool! Coming off out of a 9-week practicum placement in a grade 1 class, I'm wondering how you help you kiddos build stamina to practice their writing for that long? I had a few kiddos that are still struggling with it at this point in the year and it was hard to push them to write more than one word at their centre in the 13 minutes they were there for. When thinking about writing these same kiddos struggled with letter sounds and building CVC words; would you just find really scaffolded writing activities that are specific for them? During my placement I had a few specific activities for them to do but they did not want to so they would do a trickier task and then they would get nothing done.
how do you find the money to pay for all the teachers pay teachers? I clicked on the first 3, i would be broke.
Hi teacher! I'm organizing a sharing session at my club and would love to have you as a guest speaker. Your experience in teaching would be invaluable to our members. Let me know if you're available and interested!