Over the past two weeks, I had the privilege of attending a kindergarten class at Gordon Terrace Elementary, where I assisted and led literacy stations!
How it Works:
The teacher divides the students into small groups of four or five and sets up five literacy centers for them to rotate through. Each group spends approximately 5-10 minutes at each station. The teacher stays at one station to focus on sound connections and phonics using a magnetic letter board. The other stations vary depending on the skills she wants the students to practice. Additionally, the class focuses on a “Letter of the Week,” so sometimes the literacy stations are geared toward that specific letter.
Literacy Stations:
Alphabet Mazes:
In this activity, students are given a maze and asked to identify the first letter of the pictures within the maze. They then place glass stones on the corresponding letter. For example, if the maze contains pictures of a house and a hat, the students would recognize that both words begin with “H” and place glass stones on the letter H to complete the maze.
Whiteboard Writing Prompts:
Students receive a whiteboard with a word prompt. They first read the word, sounding it out. Then, they write the word below, ensuring they use their best handwriting. Finally, they circle the picture that corresponds to the word above.
Buttoned-Up Letters:
In this activity, students are given a laminated picture of a letter and use plastic letters to fill in the letter to the best of their ability. This exercise helps students recognize letters and reinforces their memory by developing fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and dexterity. For an added challenge, students can use plastic tweezers to pick up the letters, enhancing concentration and precision.
Unicorns vs. Dragons (The Fidget Game):
Unicorns vs. Dragons is perfect for kindergarten students as it teaches numbers, shapes, colors, and the alphabet.
How to Play:
- Choose a deck: ABCs & Shapes or Numbers.
- Pick a card: If you draw a unicorn card, you pop the bubbles corresponding to the card; if you draw a dragon card, you unpop the bubbles.
- Play clockwise to help students keep track of whose turn it is.
- The first player to have all their bubbles popped wins!
Benefits:
- Fidgeting and soothing for students who need to relieve stress or anxiety in a fun way.
- Improves concentration and mental focus through sensory play.
- Engaging and hands-on, making it more dynamic than a typical card game.
- Encourages social interaction.
- Helps develop phonics skills.
My Literacy Station!
At my station, I used playdough sight word mats with the students. The goal was to help them learn, recognize, and memorize sight words through the tactile process of working with playdough.
My Process:
Before the students could pick their playdough, I explained the activity. I started them with two- or three-letter words and gave them a choice between two different words. Once they had the word mat, they rolled playdough into the shape of the word. I had them look at the word and check if they knew all the letters. Then, they said the letters aloud and the sounds each letter made. Then they sounded the word out and said it all together.
Overall, this activity worked great as students were engaged and it furthered their learning of reading and phonics. One group started to disengage towards the end, so I added a writing task at the bottom of the sight word mat, where students practiced writing with whiteboard pens to keep them engaged and extend the activity.
Strengths of the Method:
- Students were engaged and excited about the activity.
- Tactile play with playdough reinforced literacy skills, aligning with the Big Idea (BC Curriculum): playing with language helps us discover how language works.
- Letter knowledge and concepts of print were being developed.
Challenges:
- This activity might not be as successful without an adult present to help students stay on track and support their phonemic and phonological awareness.
- Students might get bored quickly, so it’s important to keep the activity time-limited to maintain focus and engagement.
Resources:
Photos by: Allie Kostiuk
Buttoned-Up Letters – Literacy Activity for KS1
44 Free Sight Word Playdough Mats – Forward With Fun
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