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Submitted by: Kathy (teacher mentor)

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There are so many ways to organize work stations; some are complicated and some are quite simple. I prefer simple..allowing children to choose where to go and how long to stay there. All my stations are review of lessons previously taught and are introduced to the whole group prior to putting the activity into the center. Children know how to do the activity eliminating the "Teacher, what do I do here?" It also allows students to choose, an important life skill. My stations stay out for a week at a time. I admit some stations are "STAR" stations where students are required to go sometime during the week. These are usually centers where a final booklet or class project is the end result. I have limited the number of students by the number of chairs at the center or used a number card. You can get lots of great ideas for work stations from the book "Kindergartners at Work: An Introduction to the Super Six" Check it out at www.kteducation.com This resource makes work stations easy make and set up. Very teacher friendly with good skills practice. Kids love the stations!

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Submitted by: Liz

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I teach 26 pre-primary students (5-6 year olds). Our activity time is managed on a 5 day rotational system with 5 groups - each activity time is 25 - 30 minutes in duration. The children are grouped by abilities and personalities. 3 groups work with an adult leader (teacher, teacher assistant and parent helper) and 2 groups working independently. I use a compic style management board with compic cards listing all the types of activities we do - the group name (also depicted as a picture) changes each day. The children were very quick to read the activity board and move to the activities without lengthy guidance. Within the activity time, the session is broken into a table activity part and a mat activity part with story time in between. Table activities consist of art and craft and pencil activities whilst the mat activities are purely construction and imaginative eg: homecorner, blocks, textile investigation, outdoor explorations, gardening etc. Task recording is minimal and initiated by the children if they wish to record what they have been doing. This mat time is a perfect time to observe the children at play and scaffold their learning. The children became very independent workers within weeks of commencing school. (I commenced group work week 1 of school) I ensure there is always an additional activity set for children who finish the group's set activity earlier than the others. I change the group members and group name (based on theme focus) each term to foster new relationships. This system works very well for me.

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Submitted by: Elise

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I had a group of 11 five and six year olds in a kindergarten group this year. They all speak Spanish at home. We purchased a program called Zip Zoom created for kids whose first language is something other than English to learn phonemic awareness and vocabulary. I have half the group work for 15-20 minutes on the program and work with the other five or six in a group reading aloud, making words, or creating ABC books. By the last half of the year, their mousing skills were good enough that they could copy and paste pictures they had created in Kid Pix or that they found on a picture site into a word document for printing an ABC book. The hardest thing is their lack of ability to read, so I try to use the icons as much as possible. I had never done this with kindergarten kids before and I really didn't think they were going to be able to do it, but the majority of them could. Next year I might try to get them started on a similar project earlier in the year with their own folder on a shared drive.

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Submitted by: Lizette

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I have a prep/one composite and we use rotations/workstations everyday. I have grouped like abilities which is another reason why I came up with 6 stations. It works great!! The children work really well and look forward to it and it gives me an opportunity to get some very individualised teaching/ guided reading/ reinforce new concepts etc. We use picture cards( actually some from this site) to identify activities. I have teacher aide with a group and parent helpers too if they come. We do the activities for about 15 - 20 mins. The children do such activities as: computers, focused teaching of games/skills/reading/writing or maths, revision of concepts taught eg maths through games, listening to stories on CD, sorting, puzzles, fine motor skills etc. It not only teaches/reinforces content but teaches children to work independently and be autonomous in their learning and they LOVE it.

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