Hands-On Centers

One of the focal aspects of our daily routine include our learning centers, math centers and our literacy workshops. An important facet of these centers includes engaging students with exploratory hands-on games and activities that aim at teaching the standards/content area goals for each week! One of the most exciting ways to get students engaged is to #SetTheStageToEngage and provide students with exciting and engaging activities that will have them looking forward to doing that center.

One of the main things that I try to do is include centers related to our thematic units of study. Below are some examples of some centers I have done that are related to our units of study:

Pilgrim/Native American Unit:

• Students get to "fish" for sight words! I have sight words glued onto fish cut-outs and then attach a paper clip to each fish. Students utilize magnetic fishing rods to "fish" the sight word, read it and then write it on their paper.
• I put out Lincoln Logs and images of actual log cabins and homes that the pilgrims/Native Americans used to live in. Students had to utilize the logs to build/recreate those images.

Plant Unit: Students get to "dig" for sight words! I get a big black tub, fill it with beans (to simulate dirt/soil), and then print sight words on paper carrots and place them in the bucket. Students use plastic toy shovels to "dig" for the sight word, read it and write it on their paper.

Space Unit: I print yellow stars with sight words on them and tape them underneath a table. Students have to lay down under the table and write down 10 sight words on their papers, as if they're looking up at the night sky.

Community Helpers Unit: Each week I organized a mini-dramatic play/literacy center where students got to be construction workers, doctors, vets and bakery chefs. The main literacy focus of the center was to have students find the missing syllable/vowel that completed words that were printed on buildings (construction workers), animals (vets), and pastries (chefs). I set up the area to simulate that occupation and students got to dress up, use tools and record their answers on a corresponding response sheet.

Animal Unit: I bought the caterpillars from Insect Lore and gave each student a butterfly life cycle recording journal. Every few days the students would get an opportunity to record what they were observing through the use of illustrations and words!

Now, of course you won't be able to include these specialized centers every week (just not physically feasible!) but there is an opportunity to make your centers hands-on and engaging every week! With simple things such as including games (spinners, using dice, using manipulatives, using magnetic letters) and with activities that allow students to get up from their chairs and move around! Especially with our dual language learners, I find it so immensely important to create an environment where they are excited about going to centers and being in class that their "affective filter" (Krashen) is lowered and they are at ease and comfortable!

What kind of centers and activities do YOU use in your classroom? Can you think of ways to revamp your centers?

STEM: Push/Pull Activities in Spanish

So our school has designated several days throughout the year (primarily early release days) as "STEM" days! This means that every classroom should be engaged in a STEM activity on those days. Each grade level team came up with certain topics for each STEM day. We have already done two! In Kindergarten, the first STEM activity had to do with building sandcastles while learning about the 5 senses and the second was on gravity in relation to Humpty Dumpty!

Today, we had our 3rd STEM day, where we explored the concepts of force and motion, more specifically, the push/pull motions! I set up 6 different exploratory centers all related to this topic. I put the students in groups and had them at each center for about 5 minutes. Once they heard the timer go off, they knew to go to the following center (they are already so used to centers that this flower super smoothy!).

The 6 centers were:

1. Yo-Yos
2. Dominoes
3. Elastic balls
4. Blowing air through a straw to move objects
5. T-Chart (Categorizing push/pull pictures)
6. Cars down a ramp at different angles

In each center the idea was for students to engage with the materials and explore the concepts of how force can cause objects to move. Through these centers, the students engaged with different types of forces, such as hand movement (yo-yos), pushing with a finger (dominoes), stretching out/pushing together (elastic balls), air (straws) and angular position (cars/ramp). We discussed why some objects were harder to move by blowing air (football shaped rubber ball), while others were easy (pompoms) and why the cars went down the 'ramp' more smoothly at certain angles.

Here are some pictures of the children at their centers:

If you're interested in check out or implementing these activities in your classroom, check out my product on TpT: STEM Push/Pull Activities Spanish.