WorksheetLESS Literacy Centers

Now that school has been in progress now for a few weeks, I received a few requests for a post about literacy centers. These literacy center examples are only a few centers that teachers have sent me and want to share. To pass on other great worksheetLESS literacy ideas, post your pictures and short descriptions in the comments below.

Before posting pictures and short descriptions, I wanted to offer a few different models of different ways to implement literacy centers. Both models foster independence:

• One model provides students with a menu of choices from the teacher. For example, the teacher explicitly and intentionally teaches 4 centers (I chose 4 for the sake of this example, but ask: how many centers are developmentally appropriate for this time in the year?) Students at the beginning of kindergarten may orally plan and choose what center they will visit. Students can clean their space and move on once they are ready to move on. Later in the kindergarten year or even into 1st grade, students can write/circle/highlight their plan on a literacy planner.

Menu 

Literacy Planner

• A second model provides students with a more scheduled approach to centers. All children are grouped heterogeneously (mix em' up!) and teachers are managing where students go. Teachers make a pocket chart with pictures of the centers on one side and the 4 groups of students on the other. Teachers move the student group cards each day so that each student will visit every center each week. Like the model below, centers are taught explicitly and intentionally. In this picture, all students have a "have to" job before they make their next move.

As you may notice, these centers are not worksheet based. All of these centers are geared toward kindergarten in both literacy, language building and fine motor development.

Students use tiles (or anything) with the ABC's on them and match them to the ABC mat.

Students use clothepins to match the letters to their name.

Students use the drawing card to use shapes to draw animals, people, things, etc. Students are then challenged to draw a setting around the object. Challenge: add speech bubble or writing to match the picture.

Students use a set of ABC letters and sort if the letter is in their name on a sorting mat.

Students use letter tiles to build their name and write their name. Challenge: build and write friends' names.

Students build letters using pattern blocks.

Students use push pins to poke holes in the shapes.

(Sorry for the upside down pictures!) Students colored and cut characters from The Three Little Pigs and retell the story using picture cards.

Students use tweezers to pick up small objects and place them in an egg carton.

Children use alphabet tiles to create an alphabet rainbow.

These pictures and centers are just to highlight a few fun, engaging, worksheetLESS literacy/fine motor centers students can enjoy during literacy work time. Let us not to forget that in the first 9 weeks of any new grade, it can be helpful to revert back to the previous 9 weeks of the prior grade (i,e. the first 9 weeks of kindergarten look like preschool and the first 9 weeks of 1st grade look more like the end of kindergarten.)  As we continue to build and create the culture and environment, let's ensure that we continue to focus on the social/emotional skills to foster independence, the fine motor skills to foster strength and oral language to foster a greater communication for our students.