Free Choice in Kindergarten

I have been working on a presentation I am doing in June, trying to get prepared because it is BIG for me. I was asked to be a guest lecturer at the University of Florida on the topic of learning centers. I am....... nervous. O.O

Regardless of my jitters, I am insanely excited as well. Today, in preparation, I returned to my internship classroom where my supervising teacher still uses the system I helped implement for centers during the Reading block. I wanted to make sure I had some good pictures to use in my presentation and I think I snapped a few goodies today. I also had a BLAST with the kiddos. I miss them! My husband tagged along today and read them The Duckling Gets a Cookie?! by Mo Willems. They LOVE the pigeon series!

Anyway, let me explain the centers we used in our Kindergarten classroom. It took a long time to implement and it took a VERY long time for students to learn how to make good decisions and manage their time.

Here's how it works:

Students have a "person." They are just girl and boy die cuts from the library on cardstock that they decorated and we laminated.

Little paper cuties.

We put the little people in the top of a pocket chart.

Then, we used the center labels purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers HERE for $3. They are adorable. The center labels here are in a pocket chart and indicate the centers students can choose from that week. In the beginning, we limited the number of centers per week, but as the year went on and the students grew more accustomed to this method we were able to add in a LOT of different centers.

Next to the center label is a green index card with big dot stickers on them. The dots indicate how many students are allowed at a center at one time. This is a visual way to represent this limit and can be seen at a pretty good distance to quickly determine the number of students in each center. In the picture above, there are 4 students permitted to be in the Writing center at one time and based on the picture, no one is in that center right now! ;)

When students choose a center, they move their "person" behind one of the dots, as shown in the picture above. This little girl is going to Word Work!

Free choice is great, however the students have to have a way to work on different skills everyday. That's where the checklist comes in. If the students had all the choices, they would usually choose the same things day in and day out.

I created little checklists on strips of paper using the same labels (printed in black and white), with the week's dates, and stapled them into a file folder. Students can easily get their folder with their checklist and know which centers they need to accomplish by the end of the week. In the beginning, this was very difficult. Some students would breeze through them and some would wait till the last minute. Like adults, right?! Here's what a checklist looks like on my computer:

I use Publisher ALL THE TIME. I printed less when I made them in strips this way. I just printed them and cut them into strips and then stapled them in! It took maybe 10 minutes on Monday mornings. Not too shabby.

Students are given 15-20 minutes in each center. At first, I let students move freely through centers with no set time parameters, but as mentioned before, some students went crazy fast through them... so, I set timers as a solution and it worked well.

When students finish work in a center, they place their work in the file folder and then put their folder in the red pocket chart which is hanging on the other side of the blue pocket chart with their people in it.

This is the red chart labeled with their student number. I feel bad that the folders weren't in there. My supervising teacher is grading them! But they were filled with folders and papers!

This way made it much easier for little hands to file their work and easy for me to collect at the end of the week. I then graded work, made my notes, and stapled everything together with the checklist on top and sent the packets home on Mondays for parents to see their progress. Easy peasy.

I love this strategy for running centers. The students are given choices which they love. They can work with different students everyday rather than just the few in their reading group. They are learning independence early on and it has set in motion the development of time management skills and good decision making.

I also use free choice within the centers as well, which makes it easier on me because I don't have to change centers all the time! Students know when they go to Word Work, they can do magnet letter challenges, nonsense word cards, partner phonics games, etc. I won't delve into what each center has to offer in this post. Maybe another time!

The Pinterest Makeover + Tutorial

I adore Pinterest, as I'm sure every other teacher on the planet does. One thing I haven't really liked about Pinterest though is that the "cover" photo on each board was just a random pin from the board. I like things to look nice and just some random pin wasn't cutting it for me.

So, I did a little research and used some of the other very organized teachers that I follow and made some cover photos! However, a lot of the other teacher bloggers or TpT sellers I follow have a separate Pinterest account for their personal pins (like recipes and clothes) and for their professional one (teaching!). I decided not to go that route because I would hate to have to log in and out any time I wanted to pin to a different account and I already have my friends following me on this one.

The solution? I made different themed cover photos for my teaching boards and my personal boards. 

BEFORE

AFTER

My teaching boards are a chalkboard theme and my personal ones are pink polka dots. I've kept them separated to make it easier to navigate (more for myself than anything....). I love it!

Here's how I did it. It was very simple because I used PicMonkey! I am a HUGE fan of PicMonkey!

1. Go to PicMonkey.com. This is a free site where you can edit and create images as well as create collages of images. This is the site I use all the time for my collage images in my other blog posts!

Click the design tab at the top. For this method, don't worry about size of the image. I used an entire image as my background. If you'd like to start from scratch and use the background provided by PicMonkey, the image size that works best for Pinterest board covers is 222 x 150 which you can enter in after clicking "custom" under the Design tab.

2. Again, for my method, I located a background that was a good size for Pinterest covers and opened it as an image.

I clicked Open at the top bar of tabs and it directed me to folders where I located the file I wanted as my background. The chalkboard backgrounds used were downloaded from Creative Commons.

3. After my background is uploaded, I started with the text.

First, click the Text tab on the left (looks like Tt). Then select your desired text! They have some great free ones, which is what I use, but if you like the "Royal" ones, you have to pay a subscription. I chose "Chelsea Market" and then clicked the "Add Text" button at the top.

4. Start typing and then design your text.

I chose my text to be colored white and I centered the text. You can also change the size here, but I prefer a different way. I click out of the highlighted text and drag the corners of the text box. PicMonkey automatically changes the size of the text to match the size of the box.

5. Time for graphics and decoration! My favorite part! PicMonkey has a pretty good selection of overlays you can use for free (or again, if you pay for the royal package you have access to more). Or you can upload your own graphics. Both of which are shown here.

On the left bar, click the butterfly icon which is your menu for overlays. For this tutorial, I chose the Graphic Blooms category and chose a PicMonkey stock image. Once you click the image you want, it will show up in the center of your design. Then resize as normal!

6. I am a fan of graphics behind the text instead of surrounding text with graphics. I love different layers! Since we want the text to be in front of the graphic, we need to re-order the layers.

Simply right-click your graphic and select "Send Backward." This will send the image behind the text to give you some great layers.

7. As mentioned, you can also add your own graphics. In the same overlay menu (the butterfly icon), you can select the "Your Own" button at the top which will open up your documents folder. Select your image and click Open!

The bunting graphic I chose for this tutorial was downloaded from Amy Alvis.

8. This new graphic you inserted acts the same way as the stock graphic. 

Resize it and place it where you'd like!

9. Now it is ready for its debut! Saving is a breeze on PicMonkey.

Click the green Save icon at the top which will direct you to this page:

Name your file and click the green bar "Save to My Computer." Select the location you'd like it to stay and click save! Simple!

10. Ready to upload to Pinterest? Go to your Pinterest profile and open the board you'd like to place this cover photo.

Click the box at the top left that says "Add Pin." It will open up a screen that looks like this:

Click "Your Computer" and find your beautiful photo you created in PicMonkey! Once it is uploaded it will open up a screen that looks like this:

Type in a description (this is required, so just type in whatever you want. I usually just type "COVER" or something. Click Pin It!

11. Now we can finally set it as your cover photo!

Hover your mouse over the board you placed your cover photo in and a box that says "Change Cover" will appear. Click that box and navigate through your pins on that board until you find your cover image. Since you just uploaded it, it should be the first image that pops up, but a couple of times, Pinterest gave me a problem and I had to click next a few times to get to it. 

And there ya have it! I like the look of customized board covers. I think it looks more organized and is easier for me to navigate through. Here is a link to my Pinterest page. Don't forget to follow me for future tutorials and of course, all the teaching ideas and resources I love!! Daisy Designs on Pinterest

I hope this tutorial helped you in your creative endeavors! Comment below if you have any questions!!