My hope and dream is that my classroom is as fun, interesting, safe and comforting for me as it is for my kiddos. I organize each and every aspect of my classroom around them and tailor its design to fit their individual needs. This can be everything from book bins and a supply table, to anchor charts and math manipulatives. While this is a great way to create a student centered classroom in the sense of a physical space, I have found success in creating a student centered classroom by implementing more student choice in our classroom routines. We all know how much kids love feeling like they have a say in their learning... :)
At the start of the year, I decided literacy centers was the perfect time to introduce student choice. I would model and introduce each center the kiddos could choose from. The objective remainded the same (i.e. practice their spelling/sight words but how they meet the objective varies). It was a total HIT! They loved it so much they sometimes even got it confused with recess. Ahhhh, bless their hearts! Learning is FUN! Buttttt, soon enough it came time to get lost in guided reading ("book clubs" is our fancy term ;) and I quickly realized my kiddos became so in love with one center, they were doing it over and over and over anddd over again. I guess one could still argue they were still practicing their words and meeting the objective? :) Still, I started thinking about ways that I could allow for student choice but still make them accountable for their choices. I decided to make a literacy center tic-tac-toe board. You can get your own copy of the tic-tac-toe board and supporting materials here at my TPT store.
You can even differentiate the choices based on where you place certain activities in the tic-tact-toe board. Here are some pictures of ways I organize my space in my classroom. Having supplies and paper choices accessible to the kiddos supports and encourage independence. ;) Who could argue with that?
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