the details

Here's a snapshot of our literacy centers icon board and some details. This is a pocket chart that I attached to the back of a closet door in our classroom. My kinders know which center they are going to by looking at the four icons under their group names. In the years past, I have had students go to four centers. I would pull three reading groups and pull students to do running records during the fourth.

This year, we are working with three centers under each group of names and taking fewer running records during the first group, which I also pull my highest readers quickly thereafter. The kinders simply read down the pocket chart (the first center is first, their second center is second, etc.) to know which centers to visit in one day.

I have three kinders who make up each group and I change out those names roughly every nine weeks to keep them practicing working with new types of personalities. The index cards with their names on them are the part of the chart that rotates. Those cards follow the same way reading works. Each card moves to the right, one space. So they essentially move left to right, then down. The last card on the bottom rotates back to the beginning.

Our literacy centers are set up to be heterogeneously grouped by levels and then I pull kinders from all over when I call their groups. I teach the students how to rotate these cards and it is one of our classroom jobs. So daily, we have a student rotate them and the following day they will go to a different set of four centers.

Students stay at their centers generally for 15-17 mins but now that we only have three, they stay for about 20 mins. So, here are some of the details of how we run our literacy centers - how about yours?