Skills Centers!

We have 5 different skills centers in our classroom that help us to become awesome readers! Each day tables are assigned to a skills center. Students spend about 15-20 minutes at their center. They practice the different skills that we focus on during our whole group meeting. The tables rotate each day so that every table has visited all the centers throughout the week. Our centers are: computers, practice sheets, white boards, magnet letters, and bingo. As students are actively learning, Mrs. Alvarado and Miss Donofrio are either assigned to a particular center for that day or we rotate to check on all of our friends!

computers: Students log in all on their own and visit Starfall and PBS kids. They practice skills such as letters, sounds, blends, word families and even reading the calendar!magnet letters: Each student has their own set of magnet letters at this center. They are given pictures of objects and must look at the picture and build the word. For the past couple of weeks, we have been focusing on building words with blends, digraphs, and letter combinations. If they come across a blend or digraph without a picture (for example, pl or ch) then they must create their own word.
white boards: In this center, students are also given pictures. This time, they are writing the words on the white board. Again, if they come across a blend or digraph without a picture (for example, pl or ch) then they must create their own word. They use a sock as their eraser! This student is focusing on the blends and circling the blends in all the of the words she has written!
bingo: Students have been playing CVC (consonant vowel consonant) or short vowel bingo for the past couple of weeks. Friends rotate to be the one who calls out the words. The rest of the table keeps track of their words on their board by placing the chips over the word that is called. They must pay attention and say their words before they place their chip down.
practice sheets: Students will complete a practice sheet for the major skill of the week so that we can keep track of who is grasping the skill and who may need some help and extra practice. One of our major skills this week is antonyms! Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings. This is just one of the practice sheets students completed with the guidance of the teacher. We read the words together and then thought of their antonyms to fill in on the blanks. When students finished, they drew pictures for each of the words.

When we close out our skills centers, we have a friend from each center share something that they learned that day. Students really enjoy the centers and are able to dive deep into practicing skills with their friends!