Work Buddies

Other teachers may call it Center Time but we call it - Work Buddies - it is the time of day my kiddos look forward to the most each day. For 30 minutes each day each child is paired up with a buddy to work at a station set up in our classroom while I conduct small reading groups at my reading table.  The buddies spend 15 minutes at each station.  Each station has a specific objective or skill for the students to work on.  These skills coincide with what we are working on in the classroom.  The objectives at some stations may be developing social skills, being creative, rhyming, practicing sight words, listening to literature, writing lists, creating sentences, retelling stories, sequencing information, matching capital and lowercase letters .......

The number of stations set up in the classroom depends upon how many students I have.  There are 6 stations set up at this time.  After 15 minutes, I ring our chimes and the boys and girls know that is the signal to clean up "neatly and completely".  When they have cleaned up their station, they check our work buddies chart to see which station they rotate to next.  Each day I change the cards in our charts so they can enjoy 2 new stations the next day.  At the end of the month I change the contents of the station or add a new station.

 The boys and girls have quickly picked up on the routine and next week I can begin running our reading groups as they self monitor themselves.  I am so very proud of my Work Buddies!

Boys and girls use magnetic letters and white boards to practice their popcorn words at the ABC/Word Work Station .

Boys and girls match capital and lower case letters at the Pocket Chart Station.

These two buddies listen to a story using our wireless headphones.  Next quarter we will add a response sheet to the Listening Station.

Students get to be creative at the Art Station.  Boys and girls can use stencils, glue, fancy cutting scissors, markers, crayons, pencils colors and gel pens.  I will add other art mediums as our year progresses.

At our Writing Station, students use word lists, picture dictionaries, and picture cards to create lists.  Later in the year the  boys and girls will write sentences and stories.

These two buddies need to work together to complete this floor puzzle.  The boys and girls have a variety of puzzles to choose from at our Puzzle Station.