Stations in Action- Games, Art, and Writing

Wow friends! Time sure does fly when you're having a great time! Family and administrators often ask, "How was your day?" We always respond with the same answer, "It's always great in K!"

We mean even when it's a bad day in K, it's still awesome because no matter what happens you still have 20 or something kiddos that ADORE you and lots of parents who are grateful to you for loving their babies and instilling lots of knowledge in their eager, growing minds!!

Enough sappy stuff!! Ready for Action!! Well our Word Work Stations are in full swing! The kiddos are learning a ton and working hard.

How do we use Word Work Stations?  While we review all letters and sounds and teach a million phonemic awareness and phonological skills daily, our Word Work Stations are built around a letter, digraph or other phonics skill that we focus on for that particular week.

Each child gets a new Word Work Literacy Station Choice Board  on Monday. We use these choice boards to help keep our kiddos accountable for completing work. You KNOW those babies would never ever just chit chat, visit, and PRETEND to work and not even get 1 station finished by Friday. NO, NEEEVER!!! ;)  Hmm do you have any of those babies? It is amazing, even with the choice boards, some sly little people turn up Friday with only one or 2 smiles!

Smiles? What's that? Well, when a friend completes a Word Work activity, the teacher puts a smiley face on the activity completed. Our friends are supposed to complete at least 5 stations per week. We do have some eager achievers who complete more than 5 and earn a reward. Don't forget there are still a few who may also complete less, but we have Friday afternoon work time for friends who didn't work all week.  It usually  only takes one time staying in from play time to work while other friends are having fun before that student is working harder during station time the next week!

What do our Word Work Stations involve? Well, we like to have a balance of learning games, opportunities for artistic expression, as well as writing activities. All of the activities on the choiceboard are differentiated. Some work/games are differentiated by the activity while other work/games are differentiated by the product. For example some friends may be ready to write a sentence or two while others work on their own level writing words or the beginning sound. The objects is to challenge all of our students without STRESSING them out!!