Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Trying New Things

I am  trying something new in the library this week that I'm hoping will help to engage the students through the end of school.  My kindergarten through second grade students visit the library weekly for 30 minutes for a lesson and book check out.  Our usual procedure is for them to sit at the tables and read the books they check out, but as we are nearing the end of the year everyone is very antsy!

I have considered adding centers for them to do after they check out to help keep them engaged (and for those students who can't check out because they forgot their book), but I just hadn't started it up.  So I decided that the end of school was a great time to experiment and work out the kinks!  If it doesn't work well then letting it go at the end of the year isn't a big deal.  However, after a few days trial, I'm thinking this is a great thing so far!

I set up 7 centers to start with: Independent Reading, Listening, Bookmark making, Ipad word work, Ipad retelling, Creation station with Legos, and a Rhyming game station.  I'm switching out the Ipad retelling that I was doing with Puppet Pals to an Eric Carle board game today because there have been issues with that center.  The favorite  center so far has been the creation station where they get to make a duck and read duck books (I read a duck story before introducing the centers).  If you haven't seen Cari Young's website or book on centers, it is very helpful!!

Some classes have done better than others, and there is always the student that doesn't want to do anything but the center that is already full, but overall this seems to be working well!





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