Motherhood & Workstations

As a full time working mom who loves her job, I never think about being a stay at home mom...

until one of my kiddos (or myself for that matter) are sick.

So true!!

Sub plans...ick.

So with much dismay, I have been out of school the last two days due to sick kiddos at my own house. 

And while I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kids, I had to LAUGH OUT LOUD and totally agree when I read this...

Phew...even sick, every game we own was taken out, multicolored pens were pulled apart, holes poked in tablecloths (yea, sure it was only plastic but still), demands for "nacks" (snacks/meals) every 10 minutes (yes he was fed meals just chose not to eat), and into E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G!!!  

He's lucky I love him.

And then there's this...

We've now advanced to not everyone busts in...now we just scream, "MOM!!" as soon as I get in there.  Geez!!

Hilariously enough, my own mom asked if I needed anything and I said I wanted to be an octopus and have 12 more hours added to each day.  She told me, "not possible."  

Thanks, Mom! {note the sarcasm!}

Then I found this...

Guess I'm not the only one feeling this way.  Ahh!

I'm certainly not complaining about these three little joys in my life...{sort of}...but more the price I pay for balancing being a teacher and mom of 3.  I would love and enjoy the little snuggles and alone time if it weren't for looming sub plans and that guilty feeling that I should be someplace else right then.  Oh well.  Moving on...

Tomorrow I'm back to school now that everyone is healthy.  Thank goodness!  I'm so thrilled because my kiddos have been doing so fabulous with their literacy workstations during guided reading time.  While I haven't posted any new products for a while, I've been working on a plethora of them.  One of the newest I've been revamping are my Workstation Packets.

Since my students are expected to work independently and silently while I pull guided reading groups for an hour, I want them to be engaged in a variety of activities to help with the management/noise/boredom/chaos.  I'm a firm believer in holding the kiddos accountable...not at every station...but wherever possible so that they're "play" is still educational and not just a time to play with magnets or cut magazines aimlessly.  This lets students know that they should be doing something during those 15-20 minutes they are at that station and that I will be checking on them and how they did.  

Each week I have tweaked/added to their workstations to make them better and I'm thrilled that tomorrow, I'll get a chance to see how the newest revamp rolls out.  

Here are some of the things I'm lovin' so far.

1.  I love that my kids know the songs to set up/rotate stations and the song to clean up the stations.  

I use music all day in my classroom for different purposes.  The most difficult part for me in using the music during guided reading/workstation times was having to get up and change songs.  I lost the flow in my group and kids saw it as an opportunity to come ask me every question they could possibly squeeze in in that short walk to and from the iPod stereo.

Now, I have my focus (baroque) music playing softly all throughout the hour from my iPod stereo.  When I'm reading with groups, I take my iPad with me and when it is time to rotate, I hit our switching song on nice and LOUD.  The kids hear it and start moving!  Smooth as butter!  I allow them a minute and then stop the transition song.  The focus music continues to play softly and kids go back to work at their new station.

When we finish, I do the same thing but this time I play our clean up song.  I will brag and say that this group I have right now has been the smoothest and most wonderful at rotating and cleaning up.

2.  I am loving my workstation frames for student groups.

As soon as the music starts or they know we are starting stations, they go and get the frames and place them around the room where the stations typically go.  These frames were my summer find at IKEA for 99 cents and I love them!!  Plastic.  Colorful.  Durable.  And kid friendly!  

I have 10 stations (2 stations on each frame back to back).  The station names I printed and slipped inside the plastic covers.  With dry erase marker, I wrote on the outside of the frames.  At the end of the day, I quickly wipe off each one and write the names for the next day.  I thought of tabs or post its for the names but I love how this looks so for now I'm sticking with it.

3.  I love the new workstation packets I made.

I'm not sure that they would be relevant to anyone else so I'm still working on a way to package them.  Since my workstations change each week, I try to teach a new activity whole group first.  Then the following week (or sometimes the next day) the kids will do it independently at a workstation.  Right now they are working on skills such as reviewing short i words, practicing new short o words, listening to stories and identifying characters and setting, making/designing maps, learning about continents leading us into communities, practicing sight words and handwriting.  Lots going on!  The packets I make match each station.  Typically I have never done one for computers or Smartboard, but to help with again the management and consistency, I added a new "rules/directions" page for those ones.

Here's a sneak peak at some of the pages in my packet.  

4.  I LOVE that they are doing so good at workstations so that I can have that time to focus on my small groups.  

I have always used centers/workstations in my classroom...even in third grade.  When I made the leap from third to first, I had terrific success that first year.  I attribute it 95% to the kids I had that year!  Fantastic!  The next few years brought some challenges...what I wanted to happen and how I wanted workstations to look wasn't what was happening in the classroom.  My ideas and organization were not matching up.  Typically it meant that we would try workstations for a while and when I reached frustration, we would do seatwork instead while I met my groups.  After a while, I would reteach the expectations and try it again.  Sometimes success and sometimes not.  

This year it feels different.  It seems more organized and matching what I wanted it to be.  I'm sure the kiddos feel that and that's why they have responded so positively.  Hooray!!  

Mostly, I love creating new workstations for all literacy and Science and Social Studies activities so really...the better they do and continue to do...the more I can create!  Win, Win!

Since this week has been such a hot mess (and will continue to be since I will be at an all day training Thursday also and we have an early release Friday), I'm looking forward to starting a fresh set of workstations next week and working through a "normal" (is there such a thing?) week.

Now...it's off to bed because it's off to work finally tomorrow.