Stations, Schedule, and Freebie!

Lots to cover, so sorry for the long post.
I know lots of teachers are starting to get ready to head back to school and some are already in their classrooms setting up! I've only been on summer break for about 3 weeks, it was a long year. :)
So because it was a long year, I had to tweak a lot of things. In my last post on stations I mentioned that we would do them before recess and usually had time for 2. Well after about 2 months of doing that and getting frustrated with my Title students missing their stations and time with me, I went back to running our stations after recess. This was a really good choice because it gave me a chance do grab things at recess if needed and also to change the chart if I forgot to do so the day before, which my students were always more than happen to tell me; "we did those stations yesterday!" ha!

Looking through the posts on the Kindergarten group, I can sympathize with those of you that are getting high numbers of students. Our school merged with another school several years ago and since then our numbers have gone from the low 20s to the high 20s and 3 full classes. So I have always had to try and figure out how am I going to accommodate this many little ones while I still pull groups. I am not a person that likes to have 6 kids with me at a table, I have never felt like everyone is progressing with I have this many with me. So I pull 2-4 students at a time; I am fortunate to have an aide with me in the mornings so I can have her pull a group of 4 as well. There are times though when I don't have her and it's me and all 26-28 of my kiddos. So here is my board again:

As Deedee said in her Live video, she keeps the writing, predictable sentences, games, puzzles, stamping, playdoh, poetry, (and probably a few others) consistent throughout the year and the theme just changes. This is the same for me and keeps things really easy from month to month for the kids. I change the station themes out monthly and the activities in the tubs about bi-weekly depending on the activity. In her freebie station cards and also in her Literacy Station Management, she has Word Study A-E. I found that for me, this was not enough and I wanted to stretch a few more out so I could divide the stations up a bit more.
What I do for the Word Study tubs which has worked well for me, I keep Word Study A playdoh all year and change the letters in it as we learn them. From B-H, I put certain things in each tub so that it does stay fairly consistent for the kids. These are not based on their level of reading, just a way for me to keep things organized and consistent for them. So here is how I (try) to keep it set up:
Letter B - beginning sounds, letter matching, ending sound
Letter C - rhyming, syllables
Letter D - blends, digraphs
Letter E - word families
Letter F - CVC words
Letter G - sentences
Letter H - sight words
So for the start of the year, Word Study D-G are closed until we are more ready for those skills. If you have students that are ready for them, then they can be available for them. For all of these tubs I use Deedee's monthly Literacy and Math activities. If you would like to see more of what is in each tub, you can find that post here.

So these are very helpful to have for when I have a class size in the high 20s. Some other stations that I have are:

• Stamping - There are monthly ones I use quite often, but I also use the Stamping Phonics Beg. Sound, which is wonderful for our weekly letters and for those that continue to need it all year.
• Write the Room - I use Deedee's but I also use Stef Swanson for words, Elizabeth Hall's 
• Writing
• Pocket Chart (using the Predictable Sentences)
• Puzzles - these can be any fun puzzles you find, this station is more of a Friday fun one or just if I need to assess.
• Games
• Library
• Poetry
• Listening

My district is moving towards using a lot of technology so because of this I also have

• Laptops
• iPads (I am fortunate to have a set of 7 iPads so I use
• 2 for Tiggly
• 2 for Osmo
• 2 for buddy reading 
• LeapFrog - which over the years I have gotten grants to buy the pens and books, and also spent my own money on them as well. I have had 8 in the past but now I have 6. 

I should note, I DO NOT have all of these running at the same time (you can click on the picture of my stations board to see) But I have always been an over-planner and I like to have choices. There are days when I am just feeling sick and just cannot pull a group so I have enough stations that I can put everyone at something and be able to wander and help where needed. This is also helpful for when I need to do assessments.

So those are all of my stations; I did not totally realize how many I have until I wrote them all down! Goodness! But like I said, I like choices. :) I don't keep track of which stations I have kids do. I just move them down for the groups and change cards out if needed. 

I also wanted to share my schedule. I am always looking at people's schedules and with our school it is a little difficult because we do have 3 recesses; yes it's great so the kids can get out and play, but then we are WORKING when we are in class so I can make sure they are ready for 1st grade. As a teacher it can be a little stressful but we have made it work. So here was my schedule for the last part of the year. You can click on the top image to see it bigger. 

So I hope that is helpful. If you did not download the Word Study cards, you can HERE

I am also all about re-using things so here are some Exit Tickets you can print on bright paper, laminate, and ask any question you would like kids to answer and write down with Expo pens. You ca download those HERE