{Last Week's} Literacy Stations

I have a Post-It note on my desk every day with a list of things to do. Taking pictures for my blog always makes the list, but rarely gets done!  I get so involved in literacy stations that I forget to do anything else during that time!  Here is a peek inside of the 45 minute literacy station time in my classroom from last week. Maybe I'll remember to take pictures tomorrow to share the current literacy stations...

I have ten stations. The students visit two stations per day for about 20 minutes each. By the end of the week, they will visit all ten.

1. Computers: The students are getting familiar with using the netbooks. They may explore the games on starfall.com during this rotation. Next week I will begin using readingeggs.com. 

 2. Read to self: The kiddos may grab a reading buddy (aka a Beanie Baby) to read with while in the classroom library.

 3. Listen to Reading: I received a grant last year to have a listen to reading station in my classroom. The kids loved listening to How Do Dinosaurs Go to School. I love the Kidz Gear headphones! They seem very sturdy and have a volume control for each student. They can also be sanitized easily by wiping down with a Clorox or rubbing alcohol wipe.

 4. Play-Doh letters: They enjoyed making long ropes of Play-Doh to form capital and lowercase DNealian letters.

 5. Rainbow Writing: I had the kinders writing some of the high frequency words they will learn this year.  My main goal for the week was to have them learn how to do rainbow writing (write with crayon, then with marker, and finally with colored pencil) and to copy words.

 6. Magnets: The students had to find a magnet to match the letter on their white board.

 7. Whiteboards: They practiced writing capital and lowercase letters.

 8. Writing: I gave them a variety of styles of writing paper and their one instruction was to write and draw a story for me.  Some of the kids really got into it and made some really great stories!

 9. Cupcake Alphabet: I had these cupcakes on my Word Wall last year, but when I revamped my Word Wall, I thought they could be used in a literacy station. (They are just cardstock cupcakes with a letter sticker stuck on it.) The kids loved this station! It was a great teamwork activity to but the cupcakes in ABC order.

 10. iPads: The kids got to practice writing capital and lowercase letters in D'Nealian while using the Alphabet Board app. I love that you can turn on the arrows so the students can see which direction they write the letter. It even tells you the letter name and sound!