Gobbling Good Centers

As much as I want to apologize for my lack of blogging, I honestly can't. I have been swamped at school and at home since a certain someone is turning ONE next week {do you hear my crying out there blogland????}, so I've been busy, busy getting birthday plans ready.
At school, we've been diving right into all things Thanksgiving. We broke out some new literacy workshops and the kids are loving them!
Here's what we're doing:

Working on beginning sounds by rolling the die, and writing the beginning letter {gotta throw that handwriting in when you can!}

Making sight word turkeys by spelling the words with feathers {they love this one!}

Sorting by ending sounds

Matching CVC words to pictures

Using our sensory tub filled with corn to pull a CVC card and record the word on the correct word family {tricky, but they're catching on!}

Sorting by beginning digraph

Our November writing cards at the writing center {courtesy of Lori - love these!}

I've had a few people ask my how I do literacy centers, and I'm going to do my best to explain. If I completely confuse you, email me :)

I start with this paper to plan my week...

{I filled in Monday to give you an idea of what they are doing}

Now, I'm going to go ahead and admit that I do not use a center chart or rotation board {please don't throw anything at me thru the computer!}. I have so many different tubs/games/etc. that a center chart doesn't work for me. I keep most all of my literacy workshops in numbered tubs on a shelf and then I also use reading and writing as workshops. 

{those black tubs hold my workshops}

I have 3 guided reading small groups and I meet with each group everyday, except on Fridays when I do individual testing and the kids get to pick their workshop. This is SOOOOOOOO important to me. I will sacrifice whole group time for small group instruction any day! Each of my groups (A, B, C) has 6 kids. I am VERY lucky that our district is holding to the 18 students per class regulation/law/whatever it is. When I am meeting with a group, the other groups are broken into pairs. In the past, I've had groups of 3 work together and I started the year off that way, but we are a little too chatty, so we're trying pairs. So, when I'm working with group A, there are 6 workshops happening around the room. Hopefully the chart kind of helps you see it. Since my reading groups are broken into pairs, they are working with someone close to their same ability level. Not all of my pairs do the same workshops. I have certain workshops my first two groups do {that correlate with the skills I'm working on in their groups} and certain ones my last group does {that correlate to their skills}. Does that mean all of the groups never do the same workshop? No - I just really try to make what they're doing when they're away from me meaningful for them. 

After I meet with the first group, they take their new read to their seat to fill in their Buddy Reading sheet in their reading folder. The other groups clean up and we talk really quickly about the good and bad from that round. Then, I tell them what their next workshop is. Group B comes to me and Group A goes to find buddies to read to. After the read {or listen to a buddy read if they are in Group C}, they go to their workshop. Same thing happens after I'm done with Group B and then Group C buddy reads while A and B are in their last workshop before we clean. Clear as mud?? I really do love small group/workshop time, so please let me know if you have questions. 

Now, to make this post super long, I want to quickly show you our new math centers. This was our first week in math centers and we've done great! {We wait until we've introduced all numbers to 10 before we start math centers and they are NOT ability grouped}. 

Working on one-to-one correspondence with turkey feathers

Rolling a number to practice making them the right way

Rolling and counting on from a number

Counting and representing on a ten frame

Writing equations to make 10

All of these centers are in my Gobbling Good Centers pack...if you bought it last year, be sure to go re-download it. I added an ELA center as well as made some updates. Happy Thursday!!