Centers

I love centers! My students go to two centers each day. I use this time to work with a small group of students on language arts and math. I work with six kids, nine to twelve kids work at centers and the other half of the class is in our second classroom (which we call K2) with my aide. Yes, I have a full day aide! When the kids are in K2 they choose an interest center to work in. We have a block center, dramatic play center, manipulative center, library center, and art center. I will take some pictures K2 and post them later this week. Here are some pictures of the centers I have up this week in the main classroom.

This is the flannel board in the library center. Right now there are cut outs of chocolate kisses with numbers on them so the students can practice adding and subtracting. The blank kisses at the bottom can be used as manipulatives to help the students complete each math problem.

 I love books. This is the library center.

This is the other side of the flannel board. The students practice writing their sight words for the week on this white board.

I teach at a Catholic school so this is our religion center. I change the table cloth to match the liturgical season. It is Lent so our table cloth is purple.

This is the writing center. The students have paper to practice writing anything that they want. There is also a nursery rhyme flannel board and flashcards to make three letter words.

This is the math center. The students can choose an activity to do. Right now their choices are nonstandard measurement (they use dental floss to measure items), adding up coins on teeth cutouts and matching the amount to the correct envelope, and time flashcards.

This is the art center. This week the students are using water colors to paint whimsical scenes.

This is the computer center. One of our computers is broken so we only have one right now. The students play Reading Eggs, Starfall, and use the paint function.

This is the chart I use to manage center time. The colors are the reading groups and the pictures on the left are the centers they go to. When there is no center picture next to their picture, they come to me for small group work. I just rotate the center pictures when it is time to change centers. It took the students awhile to get the hang of it, but now that are pros at finding their center.

My Classroom

Hello everyone! I want to share what my classroom looks like. It was the end of the day when I took the pictures so the students' chairs are stacked up, but you can still see the class decor. I wanted to do a pond theme for my classroom; when it came time to buy decorations, all I could find were frogs. So I went with a frog theme.

 This is the view from the back corner of the room looking at the front left corner of the room.

 This is one of my library areas (I have three library areas) and our calendar bulletin board.

 This is the view of my classroom from the back corner to the front right corner of the room.

This is my classroom jobs chart. I put each student's name on a frog cut out and taped it to a craft stick. I use one envelope for the boys and the other envelope for the girls. I make sure that I choose an equal number of boys and girls for jobs each week.

I hope you had a great day!

~Melissa

New to Blogging!

Hello everyone! My name is Melissa and I am a Kindergarten teacher. This is my first year as a Kindergarten teacher and I love it! I taught fifth grade for seven years and finally got the chance to switch to Kindergarten this year. I work at a small school (only one classroom per grade level) in Oceanside, CA. I have been thinking about starting a blog for about a month now and decided to have faith and jump in and try it. I love following teacher blogs because they are inspiring; I have learned so much from other teachers. I look forward to sharing my ideas with you.