Power Hour

I thought I would share how we do our rotations in our room. We have four rotations. Two in the morning and two in the afternoon. I like that way better, that way the kids aren't doing four rotations at one time.  We have seat work, vocabulary, table, center. Each rotation lasts 20 minutes.Each center is part of the daily five. center 1 is word work, center 2 is spelling, center 3 is listening center, and center 4 is reading/writing center. The bottom picture is how we group each of the groups. To make it easier on the students we put a black paper that covers the two rotations. First graders would be overwhelmed with reading four rotations. So this makes it much easier for them to see where they're supposed to be.             

Afternoon rotations for the blue group. (sorry it's so blurry)

Morning rotations for the blue group.

At each center we have a basket of books, in case they get done early with their rotation. They can read books until it is time to rotate. We were having problems with scissors missing at the centers so we used shoelaces to tie the scissors to the basket. Now every center has a pair of scissors. (My colleague came up with this great idea).

Each center has a number so all of the students know where to go.

How do you organize your centers?

Teacher Tips/ New Blog Design

The first year I taught, a mentor teacher taught me this trick and I just thought it was the best idea ever. Every year I give the students a number. On everything I write their number. Pencils and each individual crayon. How many times have you found a crayon on the floor??? Well this helps solve that problem. If you notice on every crayon is their number. (I know I'm a little OCD) All I have to do is pick up the crayon and know exactly who's crayon it is. It helps with those kids that lose all of their stuff by the end of the year. No crayon in my class gets thrown away because we know exactly who's crayon it is. It's funny how it teaches them responsibility too because they don't want their number called out when someone finds a crayon or pencil.