Stations this week!

Hello teacher friends! I've been wanting to share how I do my centers with you guys for a while - I've done them a few different ways but this is my favorite so far!

It keeps ME organized and my kids get to go at their own pace so I'm not forcing kids to switch or hurry up and finish without doing quality work.

I have 5 different groups - they are grouped by ability so when I pull them for small group they are all together. Depending on what they're working on during stations, they may work together or independently.If you look at the pictures below you can see a little border around each name - this is their small group, so when I call them to my teacher table I just call the "blue group" etc.

These are my stations drawers. Do NOT buy these at regular price! Jo Ann's has them for $30 after Thanksgiving and Michael's always has a coupon for 1/2 price. They're regularly around $70! eesh!

My kids complete two stations a day - we work in stations and small group with me for about 40 minutes during ELAR. The drawers are labeled with the letters A-J. Every Monday my red group starts on A and B. Then on Tuesday I switch them to C and D, and so on. The other groups will just move down behind them. I always start the red group out on A and B so I don't get things confused for myself. My kids that are on "A and B for that day have to complete A first, check it with me, and then they finish B. The first one is usually a more "work" station so I can assess and the kids can practice where the second one is usually a more "fun" station (stamping sight words, a game, writing sentences with letters on the lockers, etc). If they finish both stations then we have early finisher games - like the fiddle sticks game I posted about earlier. I fill my station drawers on Monday and don't change them all week.

 Here is my rotation chart - I just have it up on the white board by magnets. I could've just taped the group names because I do not move them (afterthought!) but the letters definitely need to be movable - next year when I have less whiteboard space because of the Smartboard I might make this on a poster and then just use velcro for my letters.

Here are some of the stations that I have them working in this week:

Find the missing letter from sight words

 Real or nonsense? (From my Spring Fever packet) CVC... next week we will do the CCVC words

 Sequence ending sounds game from Deedee Wills

 Sight words write the room

 Computers

 Handwriting practice! These little books came from Dollar Tree and they love them!

 CVCe words from Melissa Freshwater

Does that make sense?! I love hearing everyone else's ideas and ways they do things in their own classroom - every one in my team all has their own way of doing stations- this is what works best for me! I hope it was useful in some way! Thanks for sticking with me this long!