For two lessons, my fourth grade classes rotated through 4 stations each day:
- Station #1 was a SMART Board activity to help them practice note names on the music staff
- At Station #2, I assessed the students on their Orff instrument skills (a different benchmark each of the two days).
- Station #3 was a board game also focused on note names.
- At Station #4, students completed a worksheet (one side each day) with the various written benchmarks for the quarter.
One thing I am realizing as I grade the worksheets, though, is that written work may not be a good fit for this model (especially when I need to be in a different part of the room). Students really struggled to follow the directions on the worksheets, which means I am having a hard time distinguishing between the "I didn't understand the directions" folks and the "I don't understand the concept" folks - and the directions were pretty basic steps!
Have any of you had success with work in stations? What kinds of activities work well with your classes?
In first grade we do literacy stations for 20-30 minutes a day. What really works for us is to model each station and give students time to practice (especially the first few times). For example, I had students struggling at the SMART board station as well. What worked for me is to have them sit out and watch the rest of the class. I gave them an opportunity to come back when they felt they could work calmly. When they struggled again they sat out the rest of the time and demonstrated to the class how to do the station the right way. If this still didn't work they were asked to come up with a consequence for the next time they have a problem with the station. They are surprising hard on themselves. I hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks, Emily!
ReplyDeleteI find this also very hard in my classroom with students being able to work independently on an activity. I don't do centers this year, but in the past I did with Kindergartners. I really tried to model and then have a sample sheet with words and pictures to follow along. I have many students who are not able to read directions due to difficulty reading I have found that this helps in any direction that I give for my class. Model, model, model!
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