A New Approach to Literacy Stations

Last year I began dabbling in Daily 5 with my Kinders.  As my teaching partners and I get more into the program, I have tweaked the way my Literacy Stations run by incorporating more choice into what the students do.  The way my schedule is set up we have about 30 minutes of "Literacy Stations" and about 25 minutes of "Daily 5."  I have read the book and scoured blogs for ideas on using D5 & found that there really is no one way to use it in your classroom.

In this post I want to address how my Literacy Stations are evolving.

This is my table ~ I really love this table!  I love the shape, the placement in my room, how useful it is...  Sorry, I tend to get excited about this table.  It is the perfect size and shape for working with small groups.  As you can see, I have a small storage drawer to the right of my chair which is perfect for holding materials such as dry erase boards, flash cards, game pieces, etc.  All the storage and counter space behind it just adds to the happiness factor of this space.  :-)  I sit here during Literacy Stations and D5. 

 Here are two of the activities I am using this week with my Kinders.  Because I never have more than 3 - 4 in a group I am able to differentiate activities to fit the needs of my little learners.

The Snowman activity is a FREEBIE in my TpT store.  Click HERE to download.  (Please rate it if you do.)


This is my evolving Writing Station.  The writing binders are in the crates, the purple tub to the right holds white boards and thin markers for writing.  To the left is the newest addition.  I got those little baskets from Target Dollar Spot to hold various writing activities.

 Each week I assign the groups a particular task.  This week it is the activity in the purple basket ~ A great scrambled sentence page from DeeDee Wills' Save My Ink.  The activity in the blue basket is something pulled from a Mailbox magazine, and the orange basket has a word family sort from my Hibernation themed Literacy & Math set.  Click HERE to purchase.  My Kinders really love Write the Room, so I always keep clip boards,movie star glasses & a basket of fancy pencils and twist crayons available.  Last week's Writing task was Write the Room with my Hibernation unit.  I will leave the word cards up for a few more weeks ~ even when we do another Write the Room ~ so the kiddos can grab a clip board or white board when they get the hankerin' look for some words to write.

In our Word Word station the first activity I want the Kinders to do is in the basket on the left ~ it's another great file folder activity from The Mailbox and its companion worksheet.  The second activity is from Deanna Jump's January in a Snap.

Mrs. Stowers works with students in her station ~ frequently on RtI type activities,mClass progress monitoring, so her station contains activities that can be done with little or no assistance.  The primary activity at her table this week is from my Snow Buddies 4-in-1 set.  Click HERE to purchase.  The other activity is a page from The Mailbox.

Our fifth Literacy station is the Listening Station.  No picture this week, but it is essentially the same.  The kiddos listen to a book on CD & complete a response sheet.

Our Literacy Stations segue into D5 time.  After we clean up our stations materials, we gather on our rug and have a quick mini lesson.  This is when students choose from Read to Self, Read to Someone, Word Word, or Listen to Reading.  (We have a few old timey discman type players for individual listening in addition to our group listening station.)  We haven't added Work of Writing to our choices yet. But, they really do a great job staying on task with those activities that we do!