So you teach ch sounds vs. c sounds and then the students head off to work. And you grab a few students for a guided reading group. What are the other students working on? Then you gather again, and teach a mini-lesson on a different topic, then grab a different group of kids for guided reading and the other kids are working on something. So my questions are:

1. What are the stations you have the kids working on?
2. Do they get to choose what they are working on and move on when ready, or are they assigned a station for the whole time?
3. Do the stations correlate with what they are working on that day? Because if they do and you are rotating students, then some are working on things that you haven’t taught the mini lesson to yet. 🙂
Last question! 4. How do you deal with kids that are pulled from your room during stations? Are there stations that are better to miss? 🙁

Thanks so much! Reading your post made me think of all these things that make it difficult but I really want to have effective stations and mini-lessons! =D

I have games and activities I purchased from stores like Lakeshore, but mainly use a ton of my thematic unit resources. By using thematic units the directions for the activity can stay the same, but the content being practiced can change.

Work on writing is included as a station where children write in their journals, but I also have made rotation #4 our writing block or included a 20 minute extra block of time to focus as a class on writing some years. It really depends on the needs of my students but I try to integrate writing throughout all subjects as much as possible.

Thanks!
-Liz

You are so sweet and I sometimes I wish I lived in So Cal! Haha! I would start by creating learning goals for your littles ones, by week or month, whatever works best for them. Then, I would find learning activities/games that go along with those goals (Teachers Pay Teachers, Lakeshore and Learning Resources are some of my favorites). When you focus on specific learning goals it is not as paralyzing and adding themes or manipulatives your boys enjoy will make it more fun for them. Hope that gives you a good starting point!

I just started homeschooling a couple of weeks ago and am completely overwhelmed. While I’ve been trying to adjust to this new journey I’ve mostly been leaning on worksheets so that I at least feel like my kids are learning something but I’m really and anxious to get organized and create hands-on, interactive, fun lessons. There are so many wonderful resources out there that I sorta feel paralyzed by it all. What would your advice be to someone like me who’s just starting off? I’m teaching my two boys who just started Kinder and 2nd Grade. Help : )