I am receiving a lot of emails about literacy centers, so I have decided to put my literacy center curriculum up for you to read! The most important things to remember about literacy centers is to change them often, don’t let students spend too much time in each center, and make sure they are self directed and accountable.  I touched on these centers in our free perfect kindergarten day handout, but I will be going into more detail here.

For starters you need to decide what kinds of centers you want to have in your classroom. A few great centers are listed below.

• Listening Center
• Writing Center
• Library
• Computers
• Read the Room
• Math and Science Center
• Art
• Pocket Chart
• ABC’s Center
• Browsing Boxes

Ten is a good number of centers because it gives students variety throughout the week, but it also forces them to finish up anything they might not have finished up the first time around.

In the next few chapters I will be going into each  of these centers in great detail and giving you all sorts of fun ideas for them.

This is one of those centers kids love coming to.  They love hearing books, and the funnier the better.  This is a center designed to grow a students love of books, to practice interactive listening skills, and to even write beginning book reports!

This center consists of a couple of sets of headphones, a book on cd or tape, and a quick handout at the end.  This is one of the more straight forward centers, but it is VERY important that you go through all the steps of using the CD player with your students and talk about sharing the book with each other.  It is also a good idea to talk about how when you have headphones on you don’t have to yell just because you can’t hear what people are saying. :)  Just trust me on this one.  Another thing I have always done is to put stickers on the buttons they should use, like a big ‘p’ sticker on the play button, or a stop sign on the stop button.  I have found this makes it easier for kids to use the cd player.

Students will read their book, and then when they are finished they should color a picture of something they saw in their book.  Use Teachable Method’s free handout, or make your own based on the book you are reading that week.

The biggest problem with this center is where to get all these books on CD/Tape.  The best place I have found is through Scholastic Book Orders.  Just get the monthly sampler of four, and before you know it, you will have an entire set of themed books for your classroom!