A Week of Reading Centers

Day One
This super easy center is an alphabet puzzle in a bowl of recycled crinkle paper:

Students search for letters and practice writing on a white board. Great sensory activity that supports letter identification and letter formation!

Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Fish is a classroom favorite and perfect for teaching students the importance of sharing. If you don't have this book in your classroom, you should! We read this book on the first day of school and paired it with these fun activities.

Name Scales: 

As I read the story, I clipped scales onto each student (clothespins, cardstock, tape and aluminum foil). I pinned the shiny scales (aluminum foil) on to only one student. When we were finished reading the story, students had to find the scales with the letters to make up their names. For students that do not know the spelling, I provided notecards with the correct spelling. This activity encouraged students to learn the names of classmates, identify/match letters and recognize names. We also practiced speaking clearly and politely. 

I made this giant fish to clip all of our scales on. This represented our goals to share with one another and be kind to our classmates. I would love to be a natural at cutting out amazing creatures, but I cannot take credit. I used my projector and taped a piece of poster board on the wall. Trace it and cut it out. I know its old school, but this can save a lot of time and money!

Poem: 

I paired the name activity with this poem. (If it's yours, please leave me a message so I can give you the credit :)

Rainbow Fish, Rainbow Fish

swimming in the sea,

won't you please share a scale with me? 

We read this several times to ask our student with the shiny scales to share with her friends. I also made all of the shiny scales the first letter of all my students name so everyone got a shiny scale and a chance to read the poem. 

Make a Rainbow Fish:

I printed out a fish template and set out a variety of supplies (watercolors, crayons, markers, feathers, glue, glitter, etc). I gave my students a good chunk of time to decorate and make their version of the rainbow fish. I love doing art on the first day- it seems to calm everyone down (including me) and helps gets some of those jitters out (Sorry First Day Jitters- but I refuse to read you on the first day of school!)

The dreaded spelling list

How many times have you sent home papers that you know have never been touched after you put them in a take home folder or backpack? Here is my quick fix for that spelling list that got lost, thrown away, mysteriously disappear, never got one, so dusty by Friday I couldn't see the words spelling list. This is 15 minutes quick. Every Monday or Tuesday we make a visual. I provided the words. The kids take ownership and make it their own. 

We made these cute watermelon wedges after reading the book Watermelon Day. Each seed has a sight word or a spelling word written in white crayon or colored pencil. I send these projects home with the spelling list or sight word list to study for the week. The students enjoy learning from their own creations rather than my boring spelling list! Great motivation to show off what they are learning. Parents can see the spelling words even if my printed list doesn't make it out of the folder. 

Other Ideas:

I frequently print out templates I can find in less than a two minute Google search. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Yes, we have tried all of these. Kid approved!

-ig pig (make spots on a pig template with -ig words)

-eet treat (decorate a candy template with eet/eat words

- brown cow (color cow spots with -ow words)

-ake cake (cake template with -ake words)

Learning with Fruit- Just Too Cute

Fruit may be my favorite food group after bread and ice cream (yes, both are food groups for this teacher). There is nothing like biting into a cool, crisp watermelon on a hot summer day or the smell of baking apples and cinnamon in the fall. As a teacher, I think it is important to introduce my students to things they may not have access to or may just avoid. So I brought fruit into the classroom. I mean a whole unit on fruit. Oh, and every activity was tied into a learning standard. Take a look:

The Math Market was one of our favorite activities. I laminated pictures of fruit and used plastic fruit as well. We practiced our money skills with some fun dramatic play. Each fruit has a price and the students used coins to pay for their tasty treats!

These are little rubber fruits that we used to make numbers on the table. Dry erase marker on the table comes off easily with an eraser and a clorox wipe when you are all done. We did all sorts of problems using these fruits for manipulatives. 

In week one, we did a mini lesson on adjectives.  Day 1, I introduced adjectives. Day 2, we started applying that knowledge to some fruit. Here are a few fruits we tasted. The student's reactions were priceless. I know fruit is expensive but I just bought a couple of each fruit and cut small pieces for my students to try. Blueberries and kiwis were some of our favorites!

Above: This was a two step project. First we made baskets from brown construction paper. 2 pieces per student. Fold one piece in half like a book and cut strips from the open end almost to the fold. Cut the other paper into strips. Weave under, over to make the basket. We stapled the sides, but you could use glue as well. Then, we made fruit for our baskets. My students wrote the name of each fruit and then one sight word they were working on. Most of my students get 5-7 words at a time. This was their basket to practice with all week. You could put anything you want on the fruit from letters, numbers, spelling words, vocabulary, really anything. 

Below: This was an easy center in reading rotations. My students cut out oranges to make a big O. The students still working on the alphabet wrote "o is for orange" with a model. My more advanced students wrote words that started with "o". 

This was one of the big projects we worked on as a class throughout the unit. We read Eating the Alphabet and decided to make our own class book. We found pictures in magazines and newspapers to create our own alphabet book. This was a great opportunity for students to learn about new foods and share some of their favorites with the class. This book was an ongoing project throughout the unit. We worked one day as a class and then I made it small group activity or had students who finished early work on it. I love making our own class books and letting my students take ownership. They love it too!

We made these cute watermelon wedges after reading the book Watermelon Day. Each seed has a sight word or a spelling word written in white crayon or colored pencil. I send these project home with the spelling list or sight word list to study for the week. The students enjoy learning from their own creations rather than my boring spelling list! 

Play in the Classroom

I recently attended a professional learning opportunity- a gifted and talented update. As a special education teacher, I usually zone out these lectures as most of my students are on the opposite end of the spectrum. However, this lady had some great things to say....enough to make me close my computer and put down my phone. What was so important?!? PLAY. Yes, that's right. PLAY. PLAY in the CLASSROOM. Now my district will not go so far as to call it play, but they do want us to know the importance of construction and discovery. Imagine that. I love it! Call it play, discovery, social- emotional instruction, whatever you want. The important thing is our students need play!
So, how do we get play in our classrooms with what feels like a million standards to teach? Integrate play into instruction! I think its a challenge worth taking on. So thats my challenge for this summer. I am starting with math- one of my favorite subjects but my greatest challenge to teach. Take a look at my math centers to build number sense. Leave a comment, suggestion, complaint, let me know what you think.

Math Centers- Number Sense

Eric Carle Author Study

Eric Carle- What an incredible author and illustrator. My students have loved reading his books. This was our first attempt at an author study. I really hoped my students would admire Eric Carle as much as I do. I will settle for them learning author and illustrator and enjoying his books. I think the best way for my students to learn is by doing. So this week we were authors and illustrators. Here are a few of my favorite things we did.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
After reading the book, we talked about what "hungry" means. We brainstormed things we eat when we are hungry. I cut out seven green circles for each of my students. We used these circles as a graphic organizer to write in 7 foods we like. Seven foods for seven days of the week. We glued on a red circle for a head and black pipe cleaners for legs and antennae. I took this hilarious pictures of their faces with mouths wide open to stick on the red circle. I think we had more fun taking pictures than anything else. Then we used our caterpillar to help us write our own versions of the Hungry Caterpillar. I made a template for my students who are still working on letter formation and sentence writing.

The Very Grouchy Ladybug
Cute ladybug clocks to make before reading the story so students can practice time while reading the story.

I wish I could remember where I found the template. Leave a comment if you know or its yours so I can give you the credit!

Color number cards red and use Q-tips to add spots. 

The Very Busy Spider
This may be one of my most favorite things we have done all year. I was worried my students would have trouble with the building, but this was so fun! Painters tape in a doorway to build a spider web. We threw paper insects to see how well we had built our web. We also practiced "under" and "through" (social studies concept).

If you have older students, you can talk about animal adaptations and have teams build webs to see who can catch the most insects.

Kids as Illustrators-

We watched several youtube clips about Eric Carle and his illustrations. We used some of his techniques and some of our own to create a huge butterfly. 

I painted the outline of the butterfly. My students used corks to make spots of color on the butcher  paper. 

We also used bubble wrap and sponges. 

Spring into Learning

After such a cold winter, we are ready for spring! Bring on the sandal weather. Here are some things we are doing in the classroom to tie in the season with our learning standards:

Reading:
Easter eggs are inexpensive and have so many uses. This week I put our spelling words in the eggs. My students have never been more excited to get their spelling list!

I also hid sight words in this sensory bowl for my students to explore. They used whiteboards to practice writing after opening the eggs.

For my students still working on letters and spelling their names, I hid magnetic letters for students to practice their names.

I also found these flowers at the dollar store and taped on letters and rhyming words. Match them with the correct flower pot (also $1). You can also use these to sort by color, counting and shapes.