What What?
Did you read the title of this post correctly?
YES…
Center Saturday is back.
Here is my center chart.
I made by center chart using a piece of black poster board, velcro,
and my Versatile Center Chart pack.
I use the same color velcro as my poster board to help hide it.Here is my favorite type of velcro.
I print out the charts I want and add colored circles to the sides.
I put a circle for each student I want at that center.
I find what position I want them to be on the center chart before I add the circles.
This way the circles are around the outside of the chart,
which is where the clothes pins will be.
{This helps little hands grab the correct clip quickly and easily.
My work centers get 4 color-coded circles.
{Yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green circles for the matching table color.}
My play centers get 2 color-coded circles.
{These are usually OTHER colors like black, brown, pink, gray, light blue, etc.}
I also add a color-coded clothes pin to each circle for the center.
Here is how I MAKE my colored clips…
They LAST so long this way.
I clip the wet clips onto a basket to dry. This is a great tip that will help you out.
I added Mod Podge to them twice.
Once to attach the colored construction paper.
After that layer dries, I added another layer of just Mod Podge to the top.
My school started back on August 6th.
For that Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
we worked on using our center chart and clips to move from center to center.
Since I am blessed with a TA,
I have one person stationed AT the Center Board.
I have one person stationed AT the Center Board.
Another person walks around.
Since this was the first full week of school,
I added just a few FUN “work” centers.
At the blue table, which is our UNIT table,
we made Brown Bear Patterns, which is part of this bundle.
we made Brown Bear Patterns, which is part of this bundle.
For this center, I printed out pattern pieces onto colored copy paper and cut them out.
And it’s part of this bundle.
And it’s part of this bundle.
I placed all the patterned pieces into a veggie tray server I bought at a dollar store.
My little wonderfuls use sentence strips to attach the colored sheets.
You can see this friend making an AB pattern.
In the yellow table, we used these math manipulatives to sort by color.
Since we are reading Brown Bear, we are working with color words, hence this activity.
My students naturally wanted to sort these by shape,
but they got the idea with the color words written on the page.
I just took a sheet of construction paper and
divided it into 4 parts and wrote the color words in each section IN that color.
You could easily differentiate by having some with the color words written in black ink too.
I knew my kinders weren’t ready for it though.
Although we didn’t do a lot of “work” we worked on procedures.
We also opened up the kitchen center.
Each of my students has to cycle through a play center correctly
before I “open” it for the whole class.
I am hoping to open the computer center, sensory table, and art stations soon.
All my other table colors hold a play activity right now instead of other work.
I hope this helps you with starting your school year off with success, with center time. Happy Back to School!
This is great Mary! Thanks for sharing! Quick question: Are the clips OFF of the chart to begin with and the children choose the location and then ADD the clip, or do they take the clip off if they choose to go to that center? If so, where do they put them while in a center? Also, are your clips connected to the names of the students in the center at all? Thanks so much!
The clips are on the chart to start. Each student takes the clip of the center they go to OFF the chart and clip it ON their body. If I look at the students at the RED table, I should see red clips ON each of them.
This year I did give each student a clip with their name. I keep it on a separate chart and they put it ON the chart when they go there. I don't like it so I think I am going back to the system I did on this post.
Mary, love the colored dots on the cards and never thought of using construction paper to the clothes oin- thanks. How do you know who is at each center?
✿Tiffani Time 4 Kindergarten
They wear that center clip… since they are color coded, it works.