Super Centers Explained

hey guys today I wanted to talk to you about my super centers I've had a ton of requests to do a video on my super centers and I am so excited that I am finally getting the chance to sit down and do one for you guys so the idea of my super centers came from a meeting that I went to about two years ago and before that I had been doing the daily 5 which consisted of word work it consisted of listening to reading partner reading independent reading um just various little activities that kids had to do throughout the day I also had a checklist for my daily vibes so I had broken up my schedule to where I had three mini lessons and then in between each mini lesson my kids would go out and have a rotation is what we called it and we I would be pulling a small group at that time too so while I was working in a small group I had various like areas where kids were working at and they had the choice so at that time it was that big huge word of choice giving kids choice to be able to pick to where they wanted to go now it was guided choice in that that I pushed my kids and kind of steered them the way I wanted them to go so they had to you know definitely have word work they can only independent read once and they could only do it once a day so they couldn't very well go to word work all three different rotations they could only do it for once and then they have to choose something different so it was still guided choice in a sense um my I had like a love-hate relationship for daily 5 because you know a lot of the times I would look up from small group and I would get so frustrated because a lot of my kids were just kind of you know doing that where they were just kind of looking and they weren't really doing anything or you know they're sitting outward working they're taking your Expo marker in they're drawing huge circles on their paper and you're like oh my gosh this is why my Expo markers don't work and you know you have those kids who are partner reading and they're not you know they're playing with the finger things they're twirling around at Foot books they are you know kind of just flipping through the books they're sitting there talking and chatting about other things they're not really doing much and I was so frustrated with that and I was like you know what am I doing wrong I'm trying to keep them engaged I'm putting all kinds of fun activities in there you know they are you know building words and they're looking for them and they're you know doing all kinds of various activities well I went to this conference and one of the breakout sessions was a lady by the name of April to say sorry I hope I'm saying that right to say sorry or I think that's right well anyways so April had this idea of something that she called smart sinners and it was a great idea in the fact that she had four tubs and inside each tub it was based around a content so a science or social studies standard and all of the activities kind of were about that content and so she would had four of them and she had her kids break out to where you know they had groups and you had that whole week to complete all these various assignments that were in this smart center and then they would rotate those four for that month so essentially you would only have to create four for the month and you would just rotate your kids through those four for that group I left it although you know me I'm all big about making sure that it works for you and figuring out what's best and for me having all of those rotations going on at one time was too much for me and it was you know their kindergarten they still need a lot of that guided practicing a lot of instruction and showing them how to get things done so I sat back and I thought well how am I going to make this fit for kindergarten how am I going to make this work for kindergarten I like the idea of having it as content because you know a lot of the times there's so many cool activities to do with content but half the time you know you're struggling to get there because you're having to do reading you're having to do math and I we enjoyed the idea and I really liked the idea that my kids everything was integrated you know everything kind of tied in together and it was just this great big cycle if you want to think of it so I sat back and I thought okay how am I going to make this fence here's the idea of it you know the first date you want to read read read building a lot of that knowledge about that content the next day you're wanting to write the next thing you're wanting to have a challenge you're wanting to have some type of an activity so I kept thinking well I still need to make sure that I'm putting a little bit of that practice of you know my phonics skills need to be in there because you know you still have some of those kids who really struggle with phonics skills so I really wanted to make sure that my phonics skills were still applying to it I wanted to give them that opportunity to write and then I also wanted to incorporate the depth of knowledge if you haven't heard about Webb's depth of knowledge it's kind of related to Bloom's taxonomy but it's different for Bloom's taxonomy it focuses more on the task and it also focuses on the verb for the level of thinking that students are using for Webb's depth of knowledge they're focusing more on cognitive demands which means that they're using more of the thinking process rather than the verb it's how are the students we're getting to that answer so really it's going beyond Bloom's taxonomy and the fact that it's going beyond the Verte it's going beyond the what and it's more focusing now on the how you know it's no longer about um you know just where did you find that it's more of how did you understand that how did you come to that conclusion and then how can you expand your thinking so it's more how than the what and the verb so I like the idea of Webb's depth of knowledge so I wanted to incorporate that into my my Supercenter so I sat down came up with this whole idea and really it was a reading workshop model because at that time I was really big into you know I'm still am I'm big into Debbie Miller and um Stephanie Harvey there were just some really big gurus in it they just have some amazing thinking that they do with their reading workshop in the way that they get their kids to really expand their knowledge and really go dig deeper into some of those standards so I wanted to make sure that I was using some type of a reading workshop model I still wanted to continue having my small groups but I also wanted to that in the second half of the semester you know where your students are already starting to become really great readers I also wanted to incorporate a lot of Flex grouping because that's about where the time where all my kids are starting to jump around so many different levels but you know they still they still may need some practice on certain skills so I wanted to be able to do a lot of Flex grouping as well so here was the idea of it and it goes really along to the lines of Debbie Miller and the idea is is it you start together and you kind of give them their focus for that lesson you give them that standard for that lesson you conduct your mini lesson and then you break out and the way I do it is that I still want to make sure that my kids are getting at least ten minutes of independent reading so they sit down right away after our mini lesson and they sit down the entire class reads for ten minutes of independent readings this is where they're getting in that practice of reading their three just right books they're practicing reading them three times and then they can go and do some type of an activity with them and this varies among students some students may only be telling me who the characters are some students may be using key details some are comparing stories it depends on the student and that's determined when we're sitting down with data binders and we're looking at what they need as far as their goal so once my students have their ten minutes of independent reading time then I tell them okay your reading workshop is open so this is the time when I'm pulling my small groups and so kids are coming back and forth back and forth with that they are either partner reading they are working on Super Centers they're independent reading now my Super Centers incorporates so many various things that incorporates reading and incorporates writing research I wanted to make sure that I was using the web's depth of knowledge so I have a Super Center that I wanted to show you guys and I brought the one that I am using for this month and it is on weather so here was the idea my concept is weather I wanted to make sure that that's tone that was what was tying into my Super Centers because I knew that that's what I was going to teach the entire week that's what I was teaching and writing that's what I was teaching and reading and for those moments that I did have that afternoon where we did some type of a weather activity it all still incorporated but a lot of the times my afternoons I don't really keep them for science and social studies because all integrated it to reading and writing so everything is integrated that a lot of the times my site my afternoon time that I usually have for 20 minutes that's my science social studies time that's my dad or binders time that's my time for them to complete some of their assignments to continue doing some of their research that they're doing so that's our exploration time is what we call it so that's time for students to be able to get things done to continue working on things that they quite haven't haven't quite finished and that's time for me to be able to assess and have one-on-one conferences with my students so let me get in and show you what my super centers are like so on the first day I don't introduce anything to them yet I teach them the concept we go over we read it on Mondays that's when we're reading our books I'm giving them as much information and they're just kind of digging into it they're starting to look at it and they're starting to take notes of things they're writing inside of there they're reading journals so they're just building a lot of that knowledge on that concept that we're learning for science and social studies the second day I introduced to them all of the different activities that are going to be in their super centers I try to keep 5 to 6 no more than 6 and if I do 6 it's very rare that I do it but if I do do 6 it's because some of the activities don't take as long or I just want to extend some of their thinking so this week I had a ton of excess activities because I love weather I love the the tons of activities that are out there for weather so I really wanted to incorporate a lot of those so here's what I came up with so for their first one and this is going to be that lower level of web stuff or the not depth of knowledge it's level one and that's just recall it's just being able to recall information so the first one that I use was a weather syllable sort so this is building some of that vocabulary in that first day we built a lot of that vocabulary in writing so we have our big weather words chart that we have that we made during writing on Monday and so we go back over it and this is where they simply cut it across they clap the syllables and they glue it to where it goes just something simple that they could practice but then it's just a skill that they also need to have some type of an independent independent practice with so that I know whether or not they're understanding that skill the next thing that I have inside of their supercenters is a okay so I guess I maybe I should tell you guys about this first so um for the week of American symbols and I think I shared this in one of my vlogs but I found this phenomenal thing called smart art and I had never seen it never heard of it before but I fell in love with the idea but you know a lot of the times you want to have those cute crafts that you want to put up in your room but who has time for tons of crafts I don't have time for tons of crafts because I'm so busy trying to either assess or make sure that my kids are are understanding all the different skills that were teaching for that week so smart art was a way for me to incorporate them learning and then them also getting in that little craft as well so I came up with a rhyming sort so right now I'm still have a few friends that are struggling with rhyming my kids love to do rhyming activities and we just finished dr. Seuss as well which we did a lot of rhyming activities in our super Center so here's the one that I came up with for what and this one is just a big son and I already had the circles pre-cut and I had the rectangles pre-cut this was on a cardstock and they had to cut that out themselves for the cloud but I literally just post it up on my board and they get to see exactly what the product is supposed to look like and at this point second second part of the year they're really good at knowing how to just look at something and just being able to follow those directions because we've done it so many times so for this one again it's just that basic lower level depth of knowledge but it's just arriving stored so they also had a strip of paper that had about some I think 10 or 12 words on it and they had to sort the words on words that run with Sun and that did not write in one Sun so in the end you have a really cute little activity that you can just post up in your classroom or post it in the hall but it's something simple and that they're doing during their reading workshop time but they're also applying various skills they're having to being able to listen listen to sound stretching out words reading words they're having to connect your phonics with your letters and sounds they have to be able to do that so a lot of things are going into just this one activity so it's extremely useful and it's beneficial and I think it's cute to be honest so let's just be real sometimes we just like to be cute I know I like to be cute so the next Supercenter that I had for this week was one that I really enjoyed and I did it on purpose because I didn't have grey paper I'm not really even sure if Astro brights has grey paper I don't think I looked it up and I haven't looked it up yet so if they have grey paper let me know but I came up with twisting facts so facts about twisters and at that time we were learning about tornadoes and we were building some of that knowledge during our snack time and during our reading time in the afternoon we were just learning so much about it and reading on it that I wanted my students to tell me four different facts about tornadoes so for this activity it was on a simple piece of paper all I did was copy it and I stick the paper in there I stuck these that were already pre-cut and I the popsicle sticks inside of the drawer and they went in they pulled out their paper they're completed their writing they cut it out and they went and glued everything so again it's just another activity that is super simple that they are applying the knowledge that there is learning from reading workshop and from their content and they're putting it into writing so again they're having to use a lot of different skills just to be able to do this one thing that it's something that you can put up in your classroom you can post it in the hallway and it's another little quick craft that they do in their classroom the next Supercenter that I had was a my thunderstorm description so we had been talking a lot about thunderstorms and I focus more on thunderstorms and tornadoes because that's what my kids are going to have a lot of connection with you know they're not going to have so much have a lot of connection with snow they're not going to have it with hurricanes because we just don't have that in this area so when it came to thunderstorms and tornadoes I wanted to make sure that my students really understood the topic because this was something that they were going to come in contact with and so when we started talking about it we began brainstorming creating anchor charts for it so the next one I did was my thunderstorm description so again all I did was copy it I didn't cut it out for them I didn't do anything so here I showed them how I cut it I cut it out I also colored it gray and then on the inside they would open it up and write their thunderstorm description and I always tell my kids your magic number is four you have to give me four things that describe a thunderstorm and then I had these pre-cut so all they had to do is just take them and glue them down it's again another quick activity that's incorporating a lot of different and various skills and research that they have to do because they're also having to go back so my kids couldn't tell me what a what a thunderstorm you know some things about thunderstorms so at that point I said well why don't you go find some thunderstorm boats that I've pulled and they're over there on our bookshelf so they would go and pull that information they would create their sticky notes with their six sticky notes that had information based on what they had looked up what they were observed in the pictures what they read in the books and then that helped them to be able to complete this so I'm also incorporating a lot of that research they're reading they're writing they're speaking they're listening through doing so many different tasks during reading workshops so this was V this was the next activity that we did the next activity that I had for my supercenters was an activity that I tied into my math time so on Monday my kids did a graph on which was their favorite weather and they had to graph it then they completed a graph assignment during math time and I wanted to incorporate that graph so that I can kind of have them refer back to it but then I wanted them to put it into writing so for that I pulled out a my favorite weather sheet so we had been doing a lot of opinion writings for the past four weeks and now we're moving into how to's but for their opinion writings this was tying in perfect with it because my kids already understood the idea of telling what their favorite weather was and then being able to give a support for it so they had to tell me my favorite weather is rainy because I love the way the sound relaxes me and that's totally my opinion right there but they had to be able to write it and draw it for me again it's just incorporating so many various skills that they're having to use on a day-to-day basis the last Supercenter that I had for this week I created a quick sheet that just said how would you stay safe during a tornado so again this is something that I was going to hit hit home for a lot of my kids because we have so many tornadoes during this season and I really wanted to make sure that they understood what they were supposed to do forth during a tornado in order for them to be safe so we've already been watching a lot of videos doing plenty of reading during reading at that time so my kids already had some pretty good knowledge as far as what they could do if they didn't again I would refer them back on the iPads to go and look up more videos I would prefer them back to their books to where they could research more in order to be able to complete this but then it also gives me a really good understanding whether not my my kids are completely understanding that topic so they would give me three things that they had that they would do during a tornado in order to stay safe and then they would draw those for me so I'm incorporating a lot of reading and a lot of writing within my reading workshop time so you may be thinking holy moley it is probably chaotic in my room and to be honest it's not my kids are so quiet because they're engaged they're doing something that is meaningful they love the smart art they love making cute fun things that keeps them engaged so incorporating some of that smart on to it really gets my kids going it gets them motivated and my kids are quiet they're doing what they're supposed to be doing now I do have a few kids that I have to stay on top of constantly so here's my remedy for this and if you have seen my February reflection this is something that was in it and it was it's been by far my favorite thing that I've been doing for my supercenters so in my in my drawers and I'll put a picture of what my drawer system looks like here so in my drawer system there is a folder and there's a laminated sheet so this is what it looks like and along the side it just says Super Center and I wrote all of my kids names on it and then I just put a big one that's just indicating that this is Super Center number one and so all of the other super centers are going to have their their designated number on it and I took my laminated sheet and I just stapled it to a plain old file folder nothing special and what they do is as they're completing the assignment they turn that item into the folder and they cross their name off so as the day goes on if during the afternoon I have a little bit of extra time to where I can sit down and look flip through it really quick I can quickly see who's getting their work done and who's not getting their work done so by the end of the day I can say Oh Amanda and David you need to make sure that you have Supercenter turned in by today because you're not going to be able to get all your other assignments finished so it keeps them accountable and it keeps me it gives gives me the opportunity to quickly check to see who's finishing these tasks and it keeps them motivated even more because they're like I really want to cross my name off that list so they get so much more excited to get their centers done get them turned in so that they can cross their name off and at that point when they are finished with their Super Center they can go independent read they can go right they can go partner read it is their choice at that point so again this was something that incorporated a lot of those content standards into my reading time it kind of ties everything together and it's giving them a lot of that reading research and writing practice they're being able to listen to talk about it with their partners and they can do this with partners they can do it in a small group setting if that's what they choice they can choose to do it independently it's their choice on how they want to go about their research and to completing the assignments so I give my kids a lot of free choice at that time and during all of this I'm pulling small groups so I'm saying you know I want to meet with yellow Griffin at this point so then they stop what they're doing they clean it up and they come to my table and I can start working with them immediately did they go back out and they continue with their super centers I do my mini lesson at the very beginning of reading workshop and then I don't go back to the carpet until the very end for our reflection so my room at this point like if you were if you were look came in and you would look at it my kids are on task you may you may see students who are sitting down partner reading you may see students who are independent you may see kids that are completing their writing at their tables and are cutting out their super center and crafts and putting it all together for their final product so they really are engaged and they're enjoying the process and this has by far been some of my favorite times with reading in general I told you that in the beginning with daily 5 I felt like I was constantly having to tell my kids I need you stop doing that need you to stop doing this no you can't do this you know is wasting so much instructional time putting my kids to where they needed to go making sure everybody was set up and then I would go to small group and then we would have to clean up to go do another whole group at this point you know I do my whole group for 15 minutes then we're done we have all this time and I can get in 4 groups extremely easy during my reading workshop time and my kids that are out there are engaged and they're applying all of the skills that we're learning for that week so it's incredible I have absolutely loved it so that is going to be it for my super centers I hope you have a really great idea of what's going on in my room doing reading workshop if you have any questions about my super centers more in detail and I didn't get and I did not answer any of the questions that you may have please leave them down below and I will answer them as soon as I can and of course if you enjoyed this video please make sure you give it a thumbs up and I will talk to you guys soon bye do something a little bit different on my channel I wanted to do something that we as teachers do so often in our profession and that's reflect

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 34,534

Rating: 4.877759 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, the lettered classroom, Bridget Spackman, weather, kindergarten, elementary teacher, elementary, first grade, literacy centers, super centers

Id: ciLaXZZWYZY

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 12 2016