My Kids’ New Favorite Center

At the beginning of the year, I created an Alphabet Book to use with my students.  I thought they would all come in knowing their ABC’s and that this would be a great way to review while we looked at different types of words.  I was so excited about them that I had them copied and stapled before the school year began.  Then, I got my class, and more than half of them didn’t know all of their letters or letter sounds, and I put all of the Alphabet Books on the shelf indefinitely.

Fast forward 13 weeks, and all of my kids now know all of their letters and letter sounds!!!  In fact, most of my kids are now reading at a Reading A-Z level of C or higher (yeah!!!!!!).  So, I pulled out the Alphabet Books, and the kids are in love! 

The books are a super simple way for them to “collect” words from around the room, or in books.  After they have “collected” their words, it’s a good way to work on reading common words.  Each page is coordinated to my phonics posters, and has lines for students to write down words from our word wall.  (Did you hear that my word wall is exploding?  If not, check out this post from earlier this week.)  The kids have had a great time with this center, and we are beginning to use the books in reading time too.  Plus, it’s a low maintenance literacy center – which is really nice at this time of the year when my kids are a little crazier than normal!