I thought you might enjoy seeing my Literacy Work Stations in action, so I took some pictures of the children using what is currently in the stations.  I did learn one thing yesterday–I was so excited to add new things to several of the stations, that I did it all on one day!  Yikes!  Not one of my better teaching ideas!  I’m going to go back and revisit some of the newbies, but overall the children did pretty well considering what I threw at them (figuratively I mean!).

Here they are: 

The current activity is ABC Seas, a game I got through my Discovery Toys affiliation (toys/games anyone??).  I have some of my children matching letters, some are matching upper to upper case, some lower to lower, some upper to lowercase, and some are making the letter sounds.

This is an activity I just got from my Games Galore grant through Donors Choose and the WTSF!  It’s called the Find It! Tube and you search for different things in the tube and record what you’ve found.  This tube just so happens to have all the letters in them and so they are just finding them at this point.  There are lots of other things to be found, but we’re just concentrating on ABC’s for now. 

This is the Handwriting Work Station.  Pictured are the activities from the “Printing Letters” Instant Literacy Centers from Lakeshore.   I have the children practice one page, then erase, do another page, erase, etc. so that the book is always ready to go for the next person.  They are just so mystified by dry erase markers that they are entertained practicing letters for 25 minutes!

This is the Writing Work Station.  These students are getting familiar with the materials and I will soon ask them to write more formal things.  They are having fun writing letters to people at home, friends, and teachers.  There are lots of stamps, stencils, pencils, markers, etc. for them to enjoy.  All my paper comes from Teachers’ Treasures, so there is always an ample supply!

Computer Work Station has been iffy lately.  We got these great new computers, but the logins are not working correctly and on a consistent basis.  Out of 4 today, we were able to log in 2 of them.  The kids are getting familiar with www.starfall.com at this point. I will have them progress to other sites as the year goes on. 

This is the Pocket Chart Work Station. We have a “butterfly” themed poem in it currently.  

First comes a butterfly and lays an egg,

Out comes a caterpillar with many legs, 

Oh, see the caterpillar spin and spin

A little chrysalis to sleep in,

Oh, oh, oh wait and see

Oh, oh, oh wait and see

Out of the chrysalis, my oh my

Out comes a Monarch butterfly!  (I inserted “monarch”, but you could just put “beautiful” if you wanted.)

This is sung to “Up on the Housetop”

The cards that you see on the top are cards for the children to use to help them hunt for specific things–in this case letters.  Eventually we will have some rhyming words, sight words, etc. to find. 

This is the Overhead Work Station.  The children use the pencil box full of letters and make words on the big screen.  Today they were spelling their names, names from the word wall, and then decided to put the magnets in ABC order. 

The increasingly popular Leap Pad Work Station

These are pictures of the Big Book Work Station.  I made envelopes for each big book we have read and put key vocabulary on the cards for the children to find in the books.  I also laminated a folder and put highlighter tape inside for the children to use and reuse when they find the words.  It will increase to more difficult tasks in the future. 

Library Work Station–I changed it around after this photo, so I will get another one soon.

Word Work Station.  Each of the students have an envelope with their name on it after they are the special helper.  These go into a plastic tub and the other children work to put their friends names back in the correct order after the letters have been cut apart.

I just added these puzzles to the Puzzles and Games Work Station.  They love them!  If you had a smaller space and combined ABC Work Station and Games and Puzzles these would work well to complement both stations at once.