That is probably one of the best things to hear in elementary
school! My center time was introduced slowly and revolved around the skills
that we were working on at that time. I used a poster with four colored dots.
The dots corresponded to dots placed on an alligator’s belly next to each
center. I had center teams, which meant four to six students were on the same
color dot. I had four center per dot, so that kids could spread out. I rotated
the dots every day, or every-other day, depending on how much time we had for
centers. Bunny Bucks was a special center that any color dot team could do to
help learn their sight words and phonics. I had centers such as listening,
writing, reading, magnets (which math and word work could be done along with
other things), math (time, numbers, etc.), creative art, free play, felt board
stories, science (lots of interactive things like the bean tub, in which I hid
something new every week!), puppet theatre, building blocks and puzzles. I
constantly updated the centers to reflect, not only a skill they needed to
master, but also skills they already had so that they could build on them.
–Mrs. C J
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