Small group centers are designed for both students to get direct instruction from teachers, as well as other small groups to apply knowledge to an independent activity. There are always three small group centers each week. In our classroom we have centers three times per week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

We really enjoy the small group time of centers, as it targets the exact area of instruction for groups with similar abilities. In the usual format, there are two independent stations, which require kids to focus on applying their knowledge of literacy or math skills independently. The third station is formatted around direct instruction from the teacher in literacy or mathematics awareness.

We broke into two centers this week:

1.Egg Carton Math: This is a fun and easy (you can do it at home!) way for kids to create math problems and get the practice they need. We worked on subtraction this week, which can be a little more tricky than addition, where it does not matter what numeral goes in front. 


2. Writing Lists : We have wonderful "word books" in the classroom that have been a fun tool to get students used to writing. Kids blindly grab the books (each book focuses on words all starting with a certain letter) and they get to write in list format on a clipboard with super skinny sharpies, what could make you want to write more?

We really enjoy the small group time of centers, as it targets the exact area of instruction for groups with similar abilities. In the usual format, there are two independent stations, which require kids to focus on applying their knowledge of literacy or math skills independently. The third station is formatted around direct instruction from the teacher in literacy or mathematics awareness.

With the shortened week, we only had two centers:

1.Popsicle stick subtraction: each students gets a baggie full of popsicle sticks. Written on each stick is a subtraction problem. As each student goes through his/her baggie, they must sort the popsicle sticks based on the answer.

2. Sight word extravaganza : This station is all about sight word repition and recognition and consists of many activities: identifying sight words, building sentences, and practicing reading and writing sight words.

We really enjoy the small group time of centers, as it targets the exact area of instruction for groups with similar abilities. In the usual format, there are two independent stations, which require kids to focus on applying their knowledge of literacy or math skills independently. The third station is formatted around direct instruction from the teacher in literacy or mathematics awareness.

1.Self portraits:The end of the year calls for the annual self-portrait. Kids use mirrors, oil pastel and colored pencil to re-create themselves.... They were told, " Imagine you lived 250 years ago, where there were no cameras to take your picture. How would you want people to know how you looked?"

2. Sight words and shaving cream! : Kids get more practice at writing sight words! It smelled like a 1950's barbershop up here!

3.Teacher station: We are back at building word families with letter tiles.....

We really enjoy the small group time of centers, as it targets the exact area of instruction for groups with similar abilities. In the usual format, there are two independent stations, which require kids to focus on applying their knowledge of literacy or math skills independently. The third station is formatted around direct instruction from the teacher in literacy or mathematics awareness.

1.Dynamite: Kids play this fun and exciting game as a group. The hidden incentive is extra exposure and practice for learning those high-frequency words. You get to collect all the popsicle sticks for which you read the correct sight word, but if you pull out a stick reading "DYNAMITE!" all your sticks must go back into the bucket.

2. 3-D shape sort: Kids work alone to sort real- life photographs of objects that fit under certain 3-D categories.

3.Teacher station: We are back at building word families with letter tiles.....