It's the end of the year, Oh Boy!

The school year is winding down and your at your wits end, right?

The kids are fidgety, they lack motivation or focus.  So what can I do?

Modify and Adjust

What do I do?  I created activities to put that energy to work.

Reading Stations Rotations

Students are given activities with the directions, materials and some times response sheets.

Station 1 Reading Technology app or game site
Station 2 Reading skills board games
Station 3 Reading interactive response projects
Station 4 Reading book clubs/ blog page
Station 5 Independent Reading/Genre stations
Station 6 Small group instruction with teacher

I explain and model expectations along with how to do each activity.  Students respond in Reading journals or in apps that I can access and view later. I set timers and they spend 20 minutes in each station.  They are required to finish at least 1 activity from the station.

Spelling/word study/ vocabulary stations

Materials:   Various types of magnetic letters, dry erase boars, markers and erasers, dictionaries, personal word walls,  access to puzzle maker.com, scrabble game, hangman game, blank sorting cards, pre made sorting cards, ink stamps, all types of writing paper, thesaurus' baskets of books.

I prepare materials and place them in extra browsing buckets or baskets like these:

Are you self contained like me?

Math rotation station ideas

Use to practice Four mathematical operations,  and place value

Playing cards
Dice
Dominoes

Online math games
Curriculum games
Life and Monopoly  board games;  Financial Literacy Strands
Project based activities


Hands on on activities a way to motivate and keep students actively engaged.  You need to prepare all materials ahead of time, make sure to model every activity students will be engaged in during the time period, and set the expectations for behavior and performance. I use baskets like these and place everything needed for the rotation station.

I love stations because I get to spend twenty minutes  with the students and do focused instruction.  In order to do that I have to be strategic in creating my groups, all the stations reflect the low Teks that we demonstrate on the assessment for that subject area, so it makes it easier to group students accordingly.

We actually started station  rotations this week, and it was so much fun to see the students laugh, and enjoy themselves while holding each other accountable for actually understanding the activity, answering the task and discussing incorrect answers.


I usually get in 3 rotation groups in  hour for reading and  4 for math.  I change out the activities every 2 days this allows all students to get through all stations.  It is a must to change up the stations so students will not get bored.  When that happens, then the day not only is unproductive, it becomes chaotic and behaviors escalates.



So your a teacher,   Now What!