As an elementary school teacher, you understand the need to create an engaging and effective literacy environment for your young learners. While the Daily Five model has been a popular choice for many teachers, it just wasn’t working for my students. These center rotations include everything great about Daily Five rotations but meet so many other needs for students too. You’ll love them too!
Read on to learn everything you need to know about 10 low-prep and high-impact center rotations you can implement in your classroom as soon as this week!
Like Daily Five rotations, centers need to be EASY to prep, include a simple routine, and have an emphasis on reading and writing.
And as you know, there’s no time to constantly make more cutesy games or to explain new directions for activities each day. With this routine, you will have 10 centers that last ALL year! I promise it’s not too good to be true!
At these centers, kiddos work in pairs. The partner groups work on similar skills.
Before you panic about having so many rotations, don’t forget– each of your centers will be LOW prep and LOW maintenance! You will love the results.
In larger groups, students can sometimes be more talkative, less focused, and always rely on certain kids in the group to do the majority of the work. This just isn’t the case with partner centers!
One of the best parts of these centers is that you can adjust your routine as needed to fit your schedule and your students! For younger children (think Prek to first), I like to limit them to two different centers each day. This prevents them from being overwhelmed by independent time and means they only visit each center once per week.
Try to give students enough time to work at each center without being rushed. Too often, I have observed children who practice 2 or 3 words at a center before it’s time to clean up. Giving them more time helps with accountability and expectations, because you know they had enough time to work.
While students are engaged in learning and fun, you can call different reading groups to your table to work with you.
Set your small groups using Digital Slides. Use digital center rotation boards to easily change partners or centers in just a few seconds.
You can completely customize the slides by adding student names or pictures!
Depending on your class size, you may need 10-14 centers so that all your students are engaged in learning.
You can use iPads or tablets for some groups to keep it simpler for yourself.
Now for the best part– everything you need to prep and provide tailored support to make these centers a success!
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At this center, students complete a simple directed drawing, add details, and write about their pictures.
Hang a completed sample for your students to see. Try to include some new words you are learning. The only students who typically copy your writing are the ones who need that support!
Remember, they are still working on writing skills.
Students use magnetic letters to the build sight words they read on cards. Once the word is complete, they read the phrase or sentence together as a pair.
Differentiate this center by choosing the set of word cards that best fits the needs of your students.
Students use dry-erase markers to write words with patterns on a window. They can write word family words or patterns, such as “words with short o.”
If you don’t have a window within reach, this plexiglass easel is fantastic!
To prep for this center, hang your newest word family posters. Put dry-erase markers and felt squares (erasers) in a magnetic basket inside the window frame. It’s super simple to set up and clean up!
Choose the skill that matches what each partner set needs.
In this center, students “explore” the topic and record facts using words or pictures.
Differentiate this rotation for students by providing resources at different reading levels. Students can also record their findings using pictures.
Students cooperatively read a big book, poem, or anchor chart. Try echo reading, taking turns, or reading together. At the end, students take turns being the teacher by asking each other questions about what they read.
You know they always love “being the teacher”!
Provide books or poems that have been previously read aloud to the class so that students have some familiarity with the words and story details.
This center is such a hit! Students write the spelling words in isolation or in sentences using smelly markers.
Hang your spelling words for the whole month. Keep all of your materials in a basket to keep this center easily organized.
For students who need additional support in spelling, they can write only the words in isolation instead of creating entire sentences about the spelling words.
Students select a book from the classroom library and complete a response sheet about it.
Teacher Tip: Download this comprehensive reading response sheets bundle to use with any book or grab these FREE reading response sample pages to start with.
Students choose a book that has already been read aloud. They could also listen to a story using an app or website.
In the Writing Center, students select a writing paper and practice writing.
Use work samples showing different levels of work and word cards to support a variety of writing skills.
Students engage in creative play at this center. They can use the writing materials to make signs, notes, menus, and more!
Use work samples and word cards to give students ideas and support their writing skills at this station.
Using word cards, students can sort, match, or play Hide and Seek to practice sight word knowledge or phonics skills.
How to play Hide and Seek with a Pocket Chart:
Provide different pairs of students with different cards that are most appropriate for their reading skills.
If you have more than 20 students in your classroom, you will need more than 10 centers. Use iPads to fill that gap while still providing high-quality learning experiences!
Students work on iPads using an assigned app. Multiple partner groups can do this center at once!
Select apps that allow for different skill levels.
With center rotations, you can be confident that you will create a dynamic and engaging learning environment that fosters so many important literacy skills. Centers minimize prep work for you and allow students to thrive through their cooperative learning in pairs!
I’m a teacher who believes in creating a classroom kids love and activities that keep them engaged all day!
©2019 Polka Dots Please. All Rights Reserved. Designed by Ashley Hughes.
22 Responses
Emily, thank you for this post! Great ideas, and I can't wait to incorporate them in my classroom!
Thanks for your sweet comments Angela! I always love finding new ideas for my classroom too!
You killed this post, friend!! AWESOME job!! and now I'm going to go cry in a corner about how much I miss teaching with you!! ❤️❤️❤️
Thanks friend!! This post made me think of the fun centers we used to do together too! <3
Great ideas! Weare really struggling with Daily 5 too!
Thanks Megan! I felt like if I quit Daily 5 that it meant I wasn't doing it right. Now I realize my class this year just had different needs. I hope you found some ideas that will work in your classroom too!
I love this!!!! My wheels are so turning right now!!! Great ideas!
Thanks Romo! I would love to hear any new ideas you have 🙂
This is so helpful! My first graders (and I!!) am really struggling with Daily 5 also. Can you share how you organize rotations of this? Do they rotate weekly? Is there a chart you use so they know where they're going? Thanks again!
Sometimes you just have to change to do what is best for everyone in your classroom, including you, right Meagen?! I use the blue chart with the picture cards to rotate my groups. Beside each line of pictures I have a card with 2 student names (I didn't want to put their names in my post). I rotate the name cards every day so each day they are at a new set of centers. During the week, they do repeat some of the centers, especially ipads. I am working on making a set of center cards and posters now so look for those soon!
Thanks for reading my post!
I was wondering where you got your sight word phrases from? I love Daily 5. Thanks for the post. I might be pinning every photo lol 🙂
Love! Are those pictures available in your tpt for center signs?
How do you keep students accountable for their work? Do you collect it or grade it?
My students are accountable for their behavior at centers every day. If I observe them being silly or off-task, they must redo that center rotation during a later time. The centers are designed to be open-ended so the expectation varies for different students. I might expect some to write three sentences after reading a text while I might expect others just to record a list of key words. After each center, they put their work samples on their desks and I do "center checks" two or three days per week. I reward students who did outstanding work. I also choose work samples to talk about before our next center rotation the following day. I have found that positive reinforcement often pushes them to do more than the minimum! It worked out really well for my group this year!
I love this!!!! My wheels are so turning right now!!! Great ideas!
thanks you!
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I really love these station ideas! I purchased your center packet on TPT but was wondering if the real like photos you have up in this article are available somewhere?
I love this! How do you keep from students repeating centers? And how do you rotate them during the hour?
Your blog is very useful for me,Thanks for your sharing.
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I’m VERY excited about using these center signs in my classroom in the fall!! But when I click on the picture, I cannot find the resource on your TPT. Help!!
Such a great read! In my first year of teaching I kept 10 centers throughout the whole year. (I teach kindergarten) and this past year I switched halfway to 5 centers only and I just felt I wasn't providing a variety for my students. Glad to see through others that having a lot of centers is okay! I am going back to 10 centers always this year. I had one question about your library nook. I noticed you have a black shelf for some books in the middle of the seats. Where did you get that? 🙂 Thanks
Where did you get your tabletop pocket chart for displaying the drawing and writing activities?
Hi Colleen,
It is from Target Dollar Spot. I found it during back to school season so hopefully they stock get them again this year.
Happy Teaching!
Emily