21st Century Centers

As the requirements for what needs to be accomplished during a school day get more demanding, valuable teaching time is a precious thing! Centers just seemed to make sense and fit into my classroom routine (excuse me, my third-graders informed me centers was for little kids and so we call it rotations. Much more grown-up huh?) Whatever you want to call it, our "daily-five-ish" rotations maximized a half-hour time slot to the fullest. Plus, I was able to incorporate a lot of technology into them, which was a wonderful (and easy) way to differentiate up or down to meet the small group's needs. If you only have one iPad and a computer extenda, you could work in only two technology centers. Or, alter it to fit your needs or class structure... SO if you don't do centers-- maybe you could use some aspects, like the fluency part whole class OR, just for you Mr. Evans, I linked a website for PE.

My back wall houses my Center Central... my round boards courtesy of the magnetic pizza pan Pinterest craze of 2012 :)

With only a thirty-minute time slot to work with, I chose to do four rotations.  This was something new for me last school year, so I took it in baby steps!  I got my math board from Clutter-Free Classroom on TPT.  I'd do one rotation a day Monday-Thursday and alternate weeks, one week reading and the next math.  Once we got the hang of it, things went faster and we could even fit two rotations in one day.

Math:
I has able to incorporate a lot of apps into my math rotations.  Especially since there are tons of hands on manipulative and math facts apps available like Kid Klok, Fractions, and Base Ten Blocks.  Math Word Problems by Teacher Created Resources (for grades 1-5) was one I used quite often and I liked that it asked the children math problems, but also provided manipulatives to help them visually work it out.  The children's favorite app is Multiplication (by Sierra SkyWare Inc.), which connects the iPods over wifi and lets the kids battle each other (there is an interactive version available for division as well).  Websites like Interactive Sites are useful too.  At your Seat was usually doing Scoot Pad or Brain Pop on the iPads and I worked with a small group during Teacher's Choice.

Reading:
Engaged Fluency during reading rotations was my favorite (and most worthwhile aspect).  I would even do this some days by itself for extra practice.  The children used Voice Memos (iPod Touches) or iRecorder (iPad) to record audio version of  picture books.  They sometimes did this in pairs (high/low) or independently.  They had to choose a book they were familiar with and was, preferably, toward the bottom of their reading level.  The focus wasn't to provide vocabulary challenge, but fluency practice.  They really got into this, sometimes recording a book two or three times before they got it "just right".  They knew others were going to listen to their audio recordings so they took the time to do it with expression, flow, and proper pronunciation of words.  I used this strategy for my struggling readers a lot too.  They were required to record a book and listen to it twice before they tested on it.  They didn't do this with every book, but it was a lot less overwhelming for them than having to read something three times.  Digital Learning was usually Scoot Pad or RAZ kids and Reading Comprehension was an app like Reading Comprehension: Solar System , Teacher Created Resources makes tons of ELA games, or Reading Comprehension Prep by Peekaboo Studios (available for grades 3-7). I tried to incorporate quick writing in At your Seat, either in small groups with me or as a CCSS reader's response to something on Tween Tribune Jr.. (These things could be easily adapted to/ used in the library environment too!)


21st century learning at its best!


Resource:
I didn't forget about you John! PE is totally out of my realm of things I know, but I found some websites in my research that might be helpful (ok, I found only ONE so I hope it's not a repeat for you, but it's a pretty good one)! Click here to take you to the site. It seems like it has interesting apps, I especially like the one that becomes a heart rate monitor when you hold your finger over the camera! Plus, there are YouTube videos for each of the apps to actually show you how they work! Time to get started on your Bright Ideas grant right? :)

Here's also a great site for Music: http://www.plattscsd.org/oak/smartboard/music.htm
and the Interactive Sites mentioned earlier has cool games for Art!