Morning Centres

Another new thing I've started this year, is having morning centers instead of morning work.  I'd started this at the end of last year because I wanted to give the kiddos more time to explore with magnets during our unit.  It was a big hit and I was amazed at all the conversations that I was hearing!  So this year I've started right away with it.  I've been using patterning materials, flash cards, games, sight words, Power of Ten cards and fairy tale masks for some drama play.  It was a great way to introduce the first literacy centers that I wanted them to learn and when it was time to start rotations, they already knew what to do!

A couple of drawbacks are that it takes them a little longer to get ready for carpet time and of course it is a little noisier than when they were doing paper pencil tasks.  Also, I need to have a bigger collection of "things" around the classroom as I don't want them to get bored with centers.  I try to have the morning choices be different than the rotation centers so that they don't get bored.  Next week I'm going to put out some building centers and some colouring/drawing options.