Back To School: Learning Centers

Today, I would just like to briefly share my learning center approach. I recently changed my strategy and am finding that it is working fantastically!

I have put the students into heterogeneous groups. There are five groups and five centers. The students go to every center, daily, for three days a week. Each center rotation lasts for 30 minutes. While everyone is working in their centers, I pull small homogeneous groups to work on reading skills. I like this because I can meet with all of my students each day and challenge them at their level. I also like the fact that all of my students have the opportunity to work with technology on a daily basis. Since I only have 3 desktop computers and one laptop, using technology can be a bit challenging. I am lucky though, because I have a wonderful school friend who shares some of her technology with me too.

Here is a list of the centers that I use and a brief description of each.

Writing - The students are responding to a text (either nonfiction or fiction) in their Reader's Workshop binder. They are required to complete their writing assignment each day so in a week's period of time they are finishing at least three response assignments.

Reading Center - The students are required to read a book and fill out some sort of graphic organizer that addresses a specific skill that I'm teaching that week (i.e. text-to-self connections, identifying nonfiction text features, character trait analysis, etc.).

Technology - The students are on a computer working on completing a project (Prezi, Glogster) or in a learning program ( ScootPad, Moby Max, Edmodo, Zondle).

Activity - The students are working together to complete a PBL assignment.

Word Work - The students are usually playing a learning board game that builds vocabulary or reading comprehension skills.

I think the following video gives a great picture of what a center based learning community classroom can look like. This can be adapted to fit any grade level.