Several of you have left me comments asking how I hold my students accountable for the work I ask them to do in our learning stations. Click here to download a copy of the "I Can" sheet my teammate and I developed to help our kids keep up with both their work and what they are learning. Asking them to write the "I Can" statement for the activity helps them to focus on the skill. They also add their likes and dislikes about each station to help us improve what we choose as activities. They keep their sheet in their binder and fill it out each day. On Friday, they turn it in.
We are lucky to have a dedicated two hour literacy block. My students go to two literacy stations each morning. The third rotation is always Read to Self. Last year, I only had five stations and students went to every student each morning. That meant I had to come up with 25 meaningful activities each week. This year, I have ten stations for the week. Each station is about twenty minutes. I do a focus lesson at the beginning of the morning before we do our first station rotation and another lesson after each of the first and second rotation before students move to their Read to Self time. (Monday's first focus lesson is always an explanation of the stations for the week.) I have small groups while they are working in stations. One group usually misses Read to Self for a small group session, so I vary the order of groups each day.
For Math, I start off with whole group instruction and move into small groups at the end of class. Part of my class goes to a Math station while several of my students have their RTI time after Math class. They usually just get through one station before we have to go to lunch. This is the first year I have tried to implement Math stations. With my schedule, this is what works for me this year. It probably won't look quite the same next year!
