I love learning centers...make that I love well-designed learning centers. And by well-designed I mean centers that are aligned to the needs of the students in the class, as well as being quick and easy to make. I've seen really fabulous centers...ones that had every kind of bell and whistle...centers that must have taken the teacher hours to prepare...centers where every item in the center had the same theme (for example baseball; everything was shaped in baseball related shapes and even the erasers in the center were a baseball theme!). But these incredible centers were often some of the worst in terms of what the students needed. Take the baseball theme example...one activity had students match the words that were synonyms (one word on a bat shape, the other on a baseball shape). It was clear after watching for a few minutes that these students had no need for this center...they already knew what synonyms were, already knew all of these words, and completed the center in a few minutes after which they proceeded to fool around and cause a commotion! It was a waste of their time and a waste of precious instructional time that could have been put to much better use. It was also clear that the teacher was pretty stressed out as she told me several times about how she had spent the whole weekend making these baseball shaped center activities!
So I am always on the quest for easy ideas that take very little time, have easily accessible parts, and most importantly, are "high horsepower" in terms of student need. After all, the purpose of the centers is to give students opportunities for independent practice around skills they are learning. I want centers that are easy to make, easy to differentiate based on a wide range of needs, and easy to manage.
The center ideas featured on this post were ones I found on Pinterest. (pinterest.com/hastings1112) They fit the bill in terms of my easy to make, easy to differentiate, and easy to manage requirements. For the first one, I needed some popsicle sticks and a marker. I set this example up as a math center activity, but there are tons of other topics and subjects that could utilize the same basic format.
This activity is designed to form a kind of "chain" based upon the answer to the question on the stick. I started by figuring out what my list of questions would be.
Then I wrote the each question and the answer to the preceding problem on the sticks.
Students always begin with the "start" stick and will finish with "the end."
The string of sticks can be as long or short as you might need and could range from easy beginner kinds of problems to very complex ones. Another important aspect of this center is making sure you have thought of how to keep the moving parts organized...with a bunch of these sticks in a math center, it would be easy to get them confused. My solution was to put letters on the back and label the activity as "Sort A." That way I could, or rather the kids could, very easily make sure that the center was put away correctly. And speaking of the kids, this would be a great activity to get them to make...have them complete their own string on scrap paper and after you have checked it, let them put it on the sticks...now you have a bunch of sorts for your center and the students have some real ownership.
The only thing left is to make the answer key and put it all in the teacher's best friend...a ziploc bag!
My next learning center activity utilizes styrofoam cups. These make a great learning center item because of the rim on the cups that can be written on but still seen when stacked. For the first center, I took vocabulary words from a unit on Earth Day and directed students to put them in alphabetical order with the first word on the bottom, continuing to build the stack upward.
After putting them in order, the students can check their work with the answer key.
Again, in an effort to keep the center sorted and organized, I put the code ED for Earth Day on the top of each cup...by the way, the cups are recyclable! I stored them in a gift bag which could be put on a shelf or hung on hooks in the classroom.
Lots of other skills can be practiced using these cups...another center I made directed students to sort the word in the cups into parts of speech categories. Again, I found a way to mark my items...in this case calling the activity Sort #6...to keep them organized.
The answer key lets students check their work.
Centers, when well-designed, are great tools for student learning. They allow students to develop independence and accountability while giving the teacher the opportunity to work with small groups.
Teaching is the greatest profession in the world...and I look forward to sharing more ideas on my blog in The Teacher's Corner posts.
All the best,
Kelly
