Hello all! I am so happy to be back. Last time I wrote about how I organize my learning centers. Today, I’m here to talk about the centers that I keep in my back pocket all year long. I don’t use them all the time, but when I need a quick and easy set-up, these are the ones I go to. Here are my 5 easy student-approved learning centers!

1. GRAFFITI WALL

This would probably be my students’ absolute favorite thing in the classroom. I put up a question, topic, or theme, and the students write their thoughts or answers on the wall. This was quick and easy to make… in other words, a Pinterest success! Just put 2 Command hooks on the wall and string wide ribbon through a roll of paper. I put a loose leaf ring on each hook and tied the ends of each ribbon onto the rings so the paper is easy to change when the roll is empty. I tacked up a yardstick at the bottom so the paper would tear easily when I needed a clean wall for our next graffiti topic.

2. CHART PAPER & SMELLY MARKERS

You can buy a chart stand at several different teacher stores, but I just bought a cheap luggage rack at a garage sale and took a pole off each end to make it shorter. I used 2 loose leaf rings to hold the chart paper to the top of the rack. You can use this chart paper for many different things. The photo above shows the kids playing spelling hangman. Here are some other lesson ideas using chart paper and smelly markers:

• Have students play tic-tac-toe on the paper with their vocabulary words (they have to define the word before they can put their “X” or “O” in the box).
• Have students define vocabulary words on the chart paper

3. OVERHEAD PROJECTOR

Remember those projectors that we used to have in school? The ones where you had to copy the worksheet or activity onto a transparency? The students of today have no clue what an overhead projector is, and they think it is totally fun! The photo above shows one of my students practicing her multiplication facts. You don’t need a large space to project either! In the photo above, it’s just projected on the side of a filing cabinet. Again, it’s totally programmable to your content area and the needs of your students. It’s just something to make work a little more interesting than just using a plain sheet of paper and a pencil.

4. POCKET CHARTS

Here, you’ll see another luggage rack I found at a garage sale. I removed a pole on each side to make it shorter. This time, I’ve attached a pocket chart. In the photo above, the students are matching their vocabulary word to its definition. Here are some other ideas you can do with pocket charts:

• Put questions on the pocket chart and have students write their answers on a sentence strip.
• Put teacher pointers at this station and have students point to different things posted in the pockets.

5. TWISTER

I was looking for an old Twister game at garage sales and never found one! But, I did find Twister Dance…which wasn’t what I was looking for, but actually, it turned out better! Don’t you love it when that happens? Here, I put out the mat and put task cards on each colored circle. I programmed a die (dice, I hate the singular form of dice!) with the colors of the circles on the game mat. I also put 2 question marks on the die as well. Each student must roll the die and then they have to do the task card on the circle they rolled. If they get a “?” they get to pick the activity they want to do. I use colored paper for the task cards, and I can quietly say in a student’s ear, “Hey, I’d like for you to do the task you rolled and then also try to do a yellow task, please!”

Don’t forget to stop over at my blog, Let’s Teach Something for a closer look into my classroom!