I’ve been doing station work in my classroom since I started teaching. I find it invaluable to be able to work with a small group of students who are grouped to suit their ability. It also gives the other children independence to work alone and I assign captains to each table. Here’s a step by step guide to introducing stations in your classroom.
1. Sit down, take out your notepad and begin with 5 groups. You may want to name these groups, I name mine after animals and this alternates every week so the children don’t see a particular animal as being the weak/strong group. The groups usually break down as follows; the brightest children in your class go into one group (usually 6 to a group), then the next 6 brightest in the second group, you will have 2 average groups who may more or less be on the same level and your weak group.
2. When you are happy with your groups, assign each one to a table. They will always sit at this table to begin their stations (some groups may vary for different subjects but they will pick this up). Explain what you are doing, that each group will be doing an activity related to maths for 10 minutes (1 group should be working with you on new material and the rest on material they already know, with one at least being revision from a previous topic).
3. Model how to move to the next table using your most reliable group (always have stations moving in the same direction so they won’t get confused). Practice this before handing any material out to the groups.
4. Next go over your station rules. Ours are 1. Using your inside voice 2. Listening to the captain 3.Clean up when the timer goes off 4. Work together 5. Everyone helps in the clean up 6. Sit quietly when the countdown reaches 0 (I usually count from 10-0 after the timer goes off to give them time to clean up.
5. Hand material out to the most reliable group and put 1minute on the timer. Model to the class how they work together, how they use their inside voice and how they clean up so well together and are sitting nice and quietly for 0.
6. Having a captain on each table is also a great help as it saves you having to intervene when you are trying to work with your small groups.
7. I also differentiate my stations. I have boxes of different activities with a picture of the animal that represents the group on it so that each group is challenged to their ability. I’m not going to lie, this is a lot of work but it is a lot more beneficial than having children sitting at tables doing activities that are too hard/easy for them. My DIP inspector wanted to see my stations differentiated so I’ve become accustomed to it at this stage.
8. For literacy I try and have a reading station with new material with me, a reading station with books they’ve previously read, a writing station, a phonics stations and a sight words station.
Hope that was a help everyone, stations take a lot of practice but they are very rewarding when the children become accustomed to it so give it a go
Sarah x
Very Good!!!
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