Center Ideas

Library- Make your library center FUN!!! Have lots of comfy pillows, little pointers...I just dipped chopsticks in glitter and you have your own fancy little pointers. Make sure your books are in bins and LABELED properly. TRAIN your students well so they can keep everything organized.

File Folders Center- Collect or make your own file folder centers. Making sure you have file folder games that reinforce the state standard for your grade level is key! That way you know they are getting extra doses of that particular skill and it is a more meaningful time for them.

Sight Word Bowling- This center really gets the students excited! You can purchase a small bowling set from the dollar store. With a sharpie have the students write (if age appropriate) sight words on the bowling pins. Once finished, have the students roll their tiny ball to hit the pins. They have to read and record the pins that fall. It is good to have several bags of these, and to make it more challenging it's good to have them use the words in a sentence as well.

Puzzles- These are really fun for the students. Having several puzzles handy will give students different options. Some of the ones aren't necessarily puzzles as much as they are skill based activities. There are antonym puzzles, rhyming ones, synonyms, etc.

Word Detective Task Card Center- This center has a huge stack of task cards (which I have made available as an attachment at the bottom of this page). Children must complete the task(s) on the cards and can use the magnifying glasses for fun. To get the magnifying glass look, simply shape some pipe cleaners! Example of using this center can be to look for "long e" words in a book and record them.

Syllable Center- This center includes words and pictures that the kids must read and decide how many syllables are in the words. You can find on the internet a lot of different syllable rules, as there are so many rules for syllabication. Also garden gloves are great to use so when they clap them out it's not too loud. :)

I Spy- This center is another favorite for a lot of teachers. There are many ways to do this center, but I'll tell you one. Get old water bottles and orange juices bottles and fill them with popcorn, rice or salt. Inside the bottles, have cut up stars with sight words on them. They must shake the bottles to find the words and then record them on a sheet or write them in sentences. The kids love this one! However, sometimes it can get noisy, so simply have them do it in the hallway.

Compound word fun- This center can include the following: file folder games, compound word match game, wrap ups of compound words, compound word puzzle matches, etc.

Mini Pages- Another kid favorite, all you need is the newspaper for this one. I have spent years collecting mini pages from the newspaper and have laminated them. The kids use vis a vis markers and after reading the paper they can do the dot to dots, word puzzles, cross words, hidden pictures, etc. You can also create many different kinds of worksheets that can go along with this center.

Keyboard Spelling Center- This center is fun for the kids - although there's not as much accountability, so you may want a parent helper or simply have the students close by. An easy way to get the full effect is to have laminated keyboard pages and real keyboards. Once at the center, have the kids take out their spelling list and type their words one at a time. They think it's cool to look for the letters. In addition, this also helps them get use to keyboarding for computer lab!

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Word detective task cards and 'magnifying glasses'

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Syllable Center

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I Spy center

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worksheet to go along with I Spy

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Bowling for Sight Words center

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storage for sight word bowling center

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keyboard spelling center