Literacy center ideas erin baxter wed

    The first webpage i explored reminded me of the wooden apple teacher's necklace- slightly distracting, but cute.  sort of.  anyways, the address is:   http://www.teachingheart.net/LC.htm

This teacher's webpage has some interesting ideas as far as organizing and running centers.  She has 6 different centers:  listening, word wall, reading, making words, making sentences, and pocket chart.  Each student has a colored dot on their desk and there's a calendar in the front of the classroom to indicate which color goes to which center each day.  They're switching centers daily and the centers are changed weekly.  I like this site because it is made by a teacher who is successfully conducting literacy centers.  Reading it helps me get a feel of what should be included and also how to keep it organized so kids know where they need to be and what they need to be doing without wasting too much time.  She has a lot of resources for teachers to print as far as individual center activities go.

     The next page,    http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/beginning10.html   focuses on the specific activities that could be used in literacy centers.  I like the ideas they have about creating a post office, with all sorts of envelopes, paper, and stamps.  It sounds like a fun way to get kids writing more.  I also like the idea of making books, about anything the students want, or a sequel to a book they enjoyed.  Although i liked a few of the ideas, this site was honestly a bit too boring for me, with too many ideas like "read this and draw a picture."  Anyone could come up with that.

       This website,  http://www.kinderkorner.com/centers.html   is cool because it's a place for anyone with ideas to post.  Although it's not organized well like the other sites, it has more creative ideas from more people.  A lot of it is in regards to materials that are useful for some teachers, and many of them would be a good idea.  Some even posted the prices, which is super helpful for those of us on a budget.  Here are a few things i like:  "Smart Slates," which are little dry erase boards which are of course useful and fun for kids, "write the room," where they go around writing everything they see, filling up a whole side of a page, and again, the "book center," where kids make their own books, which i love.  The weirdest thing i found was the idea to have a box of lensless glasses that the kids put on when they read... not sure about that one.

       Overall, these websites have some good info (mixed in there), and I'd do this again when preparing my own literacy centers.