Stations in the Middle School Classroom

With the start of school just around the corner (or already passed for some) I figured there was no better way to start of my blogging experience than with sharing a project I have been working on at school.  I have decided that it is much more entertaining to make fun Pinterest inspired crafts for the classroom than to actually get down to the nitty gritty organizing and planning that I should be doing so I continue to distract myself with different projects.  One of the larger projects I have been working on is creating tri-fold boards for each of the different stations that I use in my sixth grade classroom.  Using stations (or centers) in the middle school classroom is so much different than for younger students but it is still possible AND effective.  I know everyone has their own preferences when doing stations in the classroom but there are two things that I have found are absolutely necessary when using stations with sixth graders.

1. The teacher MUST be mobile.  I do not use stations to teach mini-lessons, teach guided reading or do anything else that requires me to stay in one spot the whole entire time.  If I try to stay still too long my students think it is free time to do whatever they want as long as it LOOKS like they are working.  They need the idea of knowing I could stop by to check on them at any moment to keep them motivated to work.  This may just be a lack of classroom management on my end but I am at least aware of it and therefore I stay on the move.  I do sometimes sit down and do a running record of a student's reading, give a DIBELS assessment or have a conversation with a student but I don't stay put for too long. I make a point to get around to every group at least once during stations to see how they are doing.

2.  There MUST be clear, precise instructions at each station.  These of course have to be accompanied by clear procedures (that have been modeled and practiced) as to what to do during stations.  My goal is that all directions are so clear that there is NO WAY a student could need for me to answer a question for them (especially when they have so many other students they can get help from).  My students know that during stations they should probably be bleeding if they need to come find me during stations (not really, but kind of). I like to be free to work with any student I choose (especially my struggling learners) without having a line of other students behind me waiting to have questions answered.

This second self administered rule for stations has meant that I have spent A LOT of hours preparing for stations.  There have been many afternoons I have sat at my computer typing out directions, rereading them through the eyes of an 11-12 year old and thinking of any other possible questions they might have.  It was pretty regular this past school year that at 5:00 or 6:00 on a Tuesday night I would still be at school getting everything ready for stations the next day.  It became so draining that by the end of the school year stations were happening less and less.  So one of my many summer tasks on my to-do list was to figure out a way to make stations seem less cumbersome during the school year.  Between a lot of Pinteresting and a lot of educational blog reading I finally came up with the idea to create tri-fold boards with permanent station options for each of the stations I have.  This means a lot of preparing up front, but very little planning during the school year.  I also wanted to have a way to choose exactly what was going on during stations so on each board I decided I would leave a spot for a "Teacher Assigned Task".  I plan on training my students to make sure that if a "Teacher Assigned Task" is given that it is number one priority and once it is completed then they have the freedom to choose anything else on the board to do.  There are so many reasons I love this plan.  First of all, students will have CHOICES at every single station.  In sixth grade there are only so many things that motivate students and freedom is one of those things.  Secondly, these boards allow me to remain ORGANIZED even when the hustle and bustle of the school year is upon me and I lose my OCD tendencies.  Lastly, these boards mean that it will be possible for stations to occur with absolutely NO PLANNING at all if I so choose.  Of course I want to tie in stations to whatever skills are being taught that week but if there is ever a week (which we all know there will be) in which I am beyond overwhelmed with conferences, assemblies, research projects or whatever else it may be, I can still pull out the station boards and have stations run just as smoothly as always.

To help you understand just what exactly these station boards look like I have provided pictures below. The options on each board consist of simple reading and writing tasks, to games I have pulled from resources such as www.fcrr.org, to activities I have found on Teachers pay Teachers, to games or activities that I have come up with out of no where.  Some options require access to a computer so those options are only available when I have rented one of our schools laptop carts or when I have set the station next to my two student computers that I have in my classroom.

Hopefully these thoughts have helped some of you who struggle with stations in the middle school classroom as well, and if you have ANY ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them.  I am always looking for new things to try with my students.  I hope you all have a great start to the school year!