Workstations!

If you have been following this blog for awhile, you know I am in LOVE with workshop (aka language arts small group instruction). It continues to be one of my favorite times of the day. I get to meet with the kids, they work independently and in small groups at workstations.

Workstations is something new that I am doing this year, and I really like it! We have 7 stations in my room and the kids visit them over the course of two weeks.

Because I love to hear how other people set up their workstations, I thought I'd share mine too. So, today is the inaugural day of the Saturday Workstation Series! For the next few weeks I will show you how we do workstations.

Today's focus is the Pocket-Chart Workstation. So, here we go. This is how we do it in my room...

Here is the pocket chart workstation.

are you diggin' the purple? :)

There are, at any time, 3-6 activities that the kids can choose from. Most of them are sorting or matching activities. They are stored in baggies and kept in the green bin.

This week the kids had a choice of:  3 short vowel/long vowel sorts, 1 rhyme match up,  and a blends sort. When the kids work on their activities they are asked to build it onto the chart like so...

two kiddos were working on a rhyming activity from my apple unit

The newest activity to the pocket chart station is Silly Sentences. The kids love it, and honestly, so do I. :) The object is to put together the most outlandish sentence using the cards provided. Here's the set up:

the kiddos need: half-sheets with lines and drawing space, pencils, crayons and...

the cards :)

The cards are "craftily" placed into three flash card box bottoms taped together. To make a silly sentence, each kiddo needs one card of each color: green to start, yellow in the middle and red to stop the sentence. Then they place it into the pocket chart.

silly right!

The student then writes their sentence down, adding punctuation and words (if necessary; every once in a while they need a preposition to make it work). They re-read their sentence and illustrate it!

The lady is eating boots., The bird is eating the pool., and The starfish is painting in a car.

Their pictures crack me up! And they have so much fun doing it (they can hardly keep from giggling!) The best part is that they are reading to understand and convey: perfect for workstations!

Since the kiddos are only in their workstations for 10 min or less (they come after their must and next do's) the activities have to be short and sweet, but also pack a punch! I change out the activities every other week, since it takes that long for my kids to rotate through the 7 workstations.

So that's our pocket-char workstation. I'm sure it will continue to evolve over the year as I come up with (or find on pinterest, lol) new things to do in it.

And because you stuck through and made it to the end of the post, the first two people to comment will get silly sentences for free :) don't forget to include your email.

And, everyone can pick Silly Sentences up at my tpt store!

Have a great weekend!