This is how I manage my literacy centers. The pirates ship was made using styrofoam sheets and paint.
You can buy the sheets at most craft stores. You draw your shape onto the sheet and then cut it out with a hot wand. Super easy!
The little pirates are birthday party invitations that I bought at Target. Each child is placed in a group…pirates, anchors, pirates ships, jolly rogers or maps. So you can see that today the pirate ships will complete the activities at the abc center and then they will read in the loft. Each day I move the group icons to the right and the last one comes to the front.
Below you will see the group charts. Each child’s picture is attached with velcro so that I can move them to another group if I need to. (Excuse the starfish..my district is very strict about showing pictures of the kids).
This is my word wall. I LOVE how bright and colorful it turned out. It is made out of fleece and felt. The letters are hot glued on and the words are attached with velcro.
It is so hard to find classroom themed items for pirates so I had to make my own color charts. I found clipart that I liked and used a paint program to change the colors. I cut out the letters on my cricut machine. I have no idea why I capitalized the first letter. Grrr! Don’t ya just get so mad at yourself when you get something finished and then realize you made a mistake! 🙁 Click on the picture to download the pirate bears.
Below are a few freebies for you. My ABC center stays pretty much the same from week to week. At the beginning we do font sorts and playdough letters and such. After we’ve done quite a bit of letter work we start doing letter sorts. Each week we focus on two or three letters during this time. The kids cut out the pictures and sort them based on their initial sound. The kids who are working at a higher level stretch their words and write the sounds they hear. You will notice that there are also some colored ones as well. These go in the abc center so that they kids can sort them in the pocket chart. Click on the picture to download them.
Another center that stays the same from week to week is the Listening center. In this center they listen to a story and then do a story response. In the beginning these are very simple. I’ve attached the ones that I use during the first months of school below. Click on the picture to download them.
Here are the icons for the pirate ship and the group charts. Click on the links or pictures to download the items.
Pirate Group icons click here
Learning center Icons
Large group charts to attach the kids pictures to.
Mercy! This is such a busy month for me. I’m busy working on my presentation for Frog Street Splash in Dallas, Texas on the 22nd and then as soon as I get back from Dallas we go back to school. Teachers report to work on July 25th and the kids start August 1st. Wow! That is quick!
We love Pete the Cat!!! 🙂 You can click on the Pete the Cat picture to take you to the unit. I love this class art project. All of their cats seem to have their own personalities!
NOTE: This unit is now called, Colorful Cats and all references to Pete have been removed.
