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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Literacy Stations in action!

We are now in Week 4 of our second term of Kindergarten and lit stations are beginning to kick along nicely! Of course there are teething problems (like the one child this week who I busted playing Lego games on the iPad or the other child who just sat with his arms folded for the time) but on the whole, the kids are engaged, learning, working together and I am getting a lot of information collected on how my cherubs are reading, and what they need to do to progress.

Let me share!

This weeks focus was initial sounds, so a few of my activities centered around this idea.

Here we are engaging in some initial sounds clipping fun. This activity had the kiddies saying what the picture was (eg. nest) isolating the initial sound and then clipping a peg on it. You can find my post about this activity HERE, which includes links to go grab it yourself.

These cubes are so versatile! These have clear pockets on them which means you can use them in reading, writing, maths..... In this activity (for my lower students) they were working on letter id and what sounds does the letter make. They would roll the dice, say the sounds and record on their whiteboard. For my more capable groups, I had various sight words and they completed the same activity. I bought the cubes on Amazon and may need to get another set!

Reading an unfamiliar text was one of our groups. They read with the support teacher who does all the orientation to the text, questions etc and then read the same book with me the following week so they can have a chance to demonstrate fluency, expression, pause etc

Here is another initial sounds sheet I made up for the kiddies. They had to say the word, isolate the sound and then match it to the letter on the page. I just concentrated on letters we have focused on recently


And one of the favourites of the week, the iPad/iPod station. We do have school iPads but we are currently setting them up to be available as class sets. This is my own iPad and my husbands iPod. We were playing Eggy Alphabet and Eggy Words. Go and find them in the app store - you wont be disappointed.

Next weeks focus is making CVC words so I will be busy this weekend making some activities for this focus ....that is after I do some work on my reports :)

Happy Friday!

11 comments:

  1. Your literacy stations look fabulous!! I would love to introduce 'stations' at our preschool but our little guys require SO much teacher input :D. I do implement 'station' activities at a table and my kiddies adore them. I love the look of the cubes with the clear pockets, think I better get me some :D

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    1. I got the cubes on Amazon - set of 3 for under $20. They are great!

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  2. I have dice with clear pockets as well - they're such a great tool for learning! I love your literacy stations and it looks like all of the kids are engaged and learning. I attempted to start stations this term as well but the kids just couldn't cope without a teacher there to keep them on task so I'm doing Word Work stations instead.

    Casey
    Lifelong Learners in Prep

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    1. Some of mine can't cope without supervision either, but I just simply their activities slightly.

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  3. this is a bit random... but where did you get the name placemats from? :)

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    1. They are from K-3 Teacher Resources website.

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    2. I have the same ones! They are great!

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  4. I love seeing your literacy stations! I'm thinking about implementing literacy stations for my Grade 1s (while having more structured literacy rotations for my preps who would really struggle - at the moment - without someone to keep them on task) with the goal of having all my class eventually working on stations.

    I'm also about to print out your initial sound clipping activity. So excited to use it with my preps this week!

    Stef
    Miss Galvin Learns

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    1. My stations are somewhat structured. They switch after 15 minutes with the group within their group (if that makes sense). They are still grouped by reading level, just so when it is their turn to read with a teacher, the teacher has a similar focus for all in that group.

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  5. Looks engaging and carefully planned! Well done! It's so hard to start stations with little ones. Once they are "trained" though, it works so well.

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  6. I enjoyed reading this post--great ideas! I just found your blog today, and I am a new follower. I will be back to read future posts...

    Smiles,
    Sarah @ Hoots N Hollers

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