Back to School CREATE Stations for K- 2: Overview

Hard to believe that August is almost here, and some of us are heading back to school! The first week of school is a blur with library rules and expectations, but by week two or three, I am ready to implement my CREATE station system. In my elementary school, I used to see 6 classes a day, kindergarten through 5th grade for 45 minutes a day. Once you get through all the introductory library information, it is comforting to get into a routine, and I love nothing more than our CREATE stations to keep our students engaged. Believe it or not, I get these started by the second week of school.

CREATE stations are 6 stations that our learners rotate through, and they may change depending on the topic or theme. Not only is each station given a name, but it is also color coordinated. The acronym CREATE gives us a framework for our stations. Each week, students will listen to a story, visit ONE station, and check out books. If you need stations to take less than 6 weeks, I also like the acronym SOAR. Why use an acronym? It helps keep everything themed and organized. In fact, by the end of the first month of doing stations, students will walk into the library anticipating which station they will be assigned to that week. 

I know every school is different, but my schedule normally followed this pattern: 
Fifth/Second/Third/ (LUNCH/PLANNING)/Kindergarten/First/Fourth...REPEAT Monday through Friday. Here we go...

These two charts are a big-picture overview of the stations I complete throughout the year. These are all very straightforward and students can usually get started with minimal guidance. Click the chart below to access links, explanations, and products. 

SEMESTER ONE:  (almost every box has a link for you to click!) 

Click on the image above to access a Google slide with links to the products as well as links to my blog posts that explain how I implement the activities. 

SEMESTER TWO: 

Semester two doesn't look too much different from semester one, but I introduce robots to second grade (and sometimes first grade) and start using Quivervision in the art stations. 

Step ONE: What does each station mean? It can actually change throughout the year because I like to keep things fluid, but for K-2, our stations normally follow this layout: 

C - Construction (or Computer)
R - Robots (or Research)
E - Engineering
A - Art (and Design) 
T - Thinking Lab (or Tablets) 
E - Explore 

Having the letter E twice in the acronym can be tricky, but we make it work.  Often times the engineering and explore stations are interchangeable, so I don't overthink it.  It is also important to note that I have learned not to change up the activities with the frequency that I used to. Students will rotate through each station a maximum of 6 times. By the time you factor in assemblies, testing, snow, hurricanes, and any other disruptions (natural or otherwise) that we experience in the specials rotation, our learners don't actually make it through 6 times. As a result, the stations don't feel repetitive, and our classes look forward to cycling through them a couple of times.  In fact, I have upset students when I changed them around!

Step TWO: Once the schedules are set and more or less confirmed (students are no longer changing classes), I create charts using GOOGLE slides; I put them in groups and assign them to their first station. This blog post provides a template you can use: The mechanics of CREATE stations. If you make a copy of the Google slides, you will see a template for my Monday classes. I duplicate the entire presentation 5 times (one for each day of the week.) Once the students' names are inserted, I group the column, so moving them from station to station is even easier. To clarify, students stay with their groups, so if they are absent that week, they will just miss that station. If I have to rearrange groups to accommodate behaviors, a student may repeat a station they just did OR skip a station. We have to be flexible, and I see too many students to try and track if and when a student misses a station! 

Step THREE: Create grade-level buckets. Most of the stations are self-explanatory except for the robot station and sometimes the art station. Each bucket is clear, and I attached a label that indicates the station and the grade level.  We printed our signs on cardstock and taped them to the inside of the bucket, so they were clearly labeled:  

The labels are very simplistic and straightforward. Click HERE if you would like the Canva template link, so you can modify them for your needs. 

Step FOUR: Break down the 45-minute time frame. My previous blog post, Counting Down the Minutes, explains how I allocate time and has links to my favorite timers. Back in the day when I first started teaching, I was an 8th-grade English teacher, and we had 7 periods a day that lasted 45 minutes. It taught me the art of squeezing it all in! 

Hope this is helpful! I will post my grades 3-5 overview next! 

Middle Grade Thematic Unit: The Final Frontiers - Ocean and Space

 

CREATE stations have been a great way to integrate library stations with the curriculum. Each letter in the acronym stands for a different activity. Students rotate through their activities once a week when they visit the library. 

Here is what CREATE stands for: 

C - Computer Choice Board 
R - Robots 
E - Engineering
A - Art
T - Thinking Lab
E - Explore and Research 

You can check out the structure and explanation HERE from one of my previous blog posts. 

In fact, in previous blog articles, I have focused on each CREATE letter and broke the station down by grade level. Currently, I am compiling my lessons with a focus on the grade level and the theme. 

This thematic unit can be completed in the library with grades 3-8! 

READ-ALOUD OPTIONS:

Space: 

Zathura (picture book)

Hidden Figures (Biography)

Race to the Moon (Fiction, choose your own adventure)

Gravity by Jason Chin (picture book)

Ocean:

Shipwreck by Gordon Korman (fiction) is found on the EPIC app and students can listen to the audiobook. This is an action-packed ocean survival novel that will appeal to fifth graders. 

Lifeboat 12 is an amazing verse poetry book that takes place during WW2. Another great survival story where the characters are stuck out to sea trying to escape Hitler's invasion. 

Corresponding Stations and Choice Board:

COMPUTER

Our computer choice board combines the ocean and space theme with these digital CREATE activities. The activities include videos, art tutorials, and coding. They can be done independently. 

You can view the choice board HERE.

If you would like to edit the choice board, click HERE. 

ROBOTS

Ozobots are perfect robots for students to code while learning about space. We code our robots to follow the path around the sun for a fun and educational space-themed activity. You can find the link to the article HERE.

ENGINEERING

Space connectagons are an excellent way for students to create and engineer while studying space. If these are no longer available, the geometric connectagons or brainflakes can also be used to create solar systems. 

Legos are also the perfect tool for engineering and creating both ocean and space challenges. 

ART

For our art station, we have our Quivervision station where we can go in-depth with both themes.  To focus on the ocean, there are several coloring sheets: 

Orca
Shark
Sea turtle 

For the space theme, we have the moon coloring sheet and the space comparison coloring sheet. These are outlined in this blog post HERE. 

Looking to use Quivervision as an art library station? Here is a tutorial on how you can get started: watch the video. There is also a great slideshow to get you started that you can access here.

THINKING LAB:

There are a couple of really fun activities and thinking games that help students understand the concept of gravity that can relate back to our space theme. 

EXPLORE:

Explore station allows students to research the topics in small bites with a meaningful impact.  Here is a worksheet we used to locate an article about the planets in the print encyclopedia: 

We also used a Britannica Resource Pack to look up the keyword, planets. This allowed us to get an overview and general information to support the classroom teachers. 

You can access these worksheets through TPT (free download): 

PLANETS FREEBIE

April is POETRY MONTH! Create POETRY stations and a digital CHOICE BOARD for the WIN!

Let's celebrate all things poetry! Library stations allow students to learn all about the sound, language, and form of poetry.  

What do poetry stations look like? Well, those of you who know me by now, know that I love my CREATE acronym. It allows students to cycle through all 6 stations that are color-coded and spell a word, so there is no confusion about where students need to go as they rotate through all of the activities! 

Here were go...CREATE your way through poetry stations. 

C - Construct
R - Reflect
E - Engineer
A - Art 
T - Think
E - Express 

**The link to all of these station materials is at the end of the blog article! (FREEBIE!) 

C is for CONSTRUCT 

How do you construct poetry? Through our favorite SPINE POETRY.  Learners will go through the library and find 4-6 books to stack on top of each other to construct a poem that has meaning and a theme. If you really want to challenge students, you can tell them to create a HAIKU out of book spines. Spine poetry is a win-win because learners are creating poems, AND they browse the shelves. I can't tell you how many students found books they wanted to check out during this spine poetry construction process. It was WONDERFUL! Here is a sample of a great spine poem: 

R is for Reflect

We want the poetry to be a lot of fun with some (okay... a LOT of) learning sprinkled in. For our REFLECT station, this is our opportunity to expose our students to some classic poets. I love Britannica, and our district has a subscription to the database. In the event your school can't access Britannica, there are some free Britannica sites. In this station, we have 6 poets and a QR code to access their biographical information. Students will choose a poet, scan the QR code and then create a BIO POEM using the same template we used for our Dear Martin stations.

E is for ENGINEERING 

Engineering poetry? Why, yes! How does one do this? With paint chips! 

Step 1 ….run to your local home improvement store and collect as many paint chips as you can. The titles of these paint colors are really beautiful, and they are perfect to help create a poem. After you collect the strips of paint chip, cut them into individual chips.

Step 2...you need prompts for your paint chip poetry. This provides learners with a theme and a message that they can craft their poems around. I love this station because learners don't have to create the words (which can be difficult), they just have to arrange the words. This station was a fan favorite. 

Option 1: Run this station as a game. (In fact, Amazon sells a paint chip poetry game). Learners can pull a theme and 6 paint chips. They can take turns arranging them into a poem, and the players can vote on the poem that makes the most sense.

Option 2:  Another option is to pull a theme and sift through the paint chips using the ones that best apply to the theme. Learners can write down their favorite poems. 
Oftentimes, I will start with option 2 and then have learners finish with the game version. Either way, this is a fun station! 

A is for ART 

Poetry is art! This station is not a stretch. Blackout poetry is a beautiful blend of art and words.  I have old discarded dictionaries that are perfect for this station. I love giving students a page from the dictionary, and they have to select the words they want to form a poem. They can then create a drawing out of the words. 

T is for THINKING LAB

This is a harder station. We revisit the poets from the REFLECT station, and we analyze one of their most popular poems. I have this formatted in 2 different ways. I created six task cards with the poet, the important quote from the poem, the QR code to the author's bio, and a chart for answers. You can print out multiple copies of each task card and students can complete 3-4 of them depending on the time allotted. Another option is to print the six task cards, laminate each one and then have students complete the chart I created for the answers. Either way works! 

Poetic device chart to use with a task card

Sample Task Card 

E is for EXPRESS

Express is a great way to explore how music IS poetry.  Using a worksheet I created, students can determine the figurative language for each of the popular song lyrics. Once they think they have the correct answers, they can check their work by listening to this great video about figurative language in songs that my music teacher friend found for me! I used this video to create the worksheet for my students. 

If you would like to access these activities, feel free to check them out at Teachers Pay Teachers (FREEBIE)! Any of these lessons can be adapted to the level of your group. 

For librarians and teachers who like to give students a CHOICE BOARD for independent work during checkout or reading groups, I have one for the month of April! This choice board is geared toward younger students. but honestly, I think all students can find something to interest them! The magnetic poetry is really fun. 

To view the choice board, click HERE.

To make a copy, so you can make copies, click HERE. 

Dear Martin: HS Library Stations and Book Review

High school library stations are really exciting because they almost always revolve around a book, theme, or genre. Even with the older students, I still like to color code my stations, and I normally number them, so they know exactly where to go and subsequently rotate.  I also use the CREATE acronym because it helps me keep all of my activities straight. 
For this set of stations, we based the activities on the novel, Dear Martin. Click on the picture below to get the full book review.  

After the students have started reading the book in class (and before they finish it), we have them rotate stations to address major themes and concepts.  This helps to keep them engaged in the story. This is what it looks like for high school students: 

C - Computer/Construct
R - Reflect
E - Engineer
A - Art and Augment 
T - Think
E - Express 

**The link to all of these station materials is at the end of the blog article! (FREEBIE!) 

COMPUTER STATION: Construct

For our first station, we construct a meme, which has been really fun for students. Students can create a meme about diversity, social justice, a character, or an incident in the book. Our students really took off with this concept and created quite a few insightful memes. 

Here are a couple of student examples: 

Reflect 

OPTION 1: Students create a Bio poem that allows them to think of all the different sides of their character. This is easy to do when you read a book written by Nic Stone who does an amazing job of developing her characters. The bio poem has students thinking about the character's fears, dreams, and personality traits. It is a great way for students to process the most important qualities of the characters in the novel. 

OPTION 2: Justyce expresses all of his feelings through his letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. These letters allow him to process his experiences and the injustices that are leaving him feeling upset and angry. Students use the friendly letter format to write to any character in the story.

Engineer 

Students are never too old to use Lego bricks to explore themes and engineer designs. In this station, students put together a lego structure that reflected a theme from Dear Martin. Because this was the first time we did this activity with these students, we provided them with several themes. They were challenged to choose the theme, build a structure and then explain how the structure and the theme relate to the story. The students created several amazing thematic structures. 

Art

Our Quivervision art station involves students coloring a shoe for a character from Dear Martin. The shoe they create should represent an idea, theme, or important message. 

To get the full lesson plan and how to use the Quivervision app, check out my activity plan on the website with this link: Dear Martin: Characterization and Social Justice

Thinking Lab 

The Cult of Pedagogy gives an excellent overview of hexagonal thinking and how it can be utilized in the classroom.   For our students, we provide the hexagons with the names of characters, themes, symbols, and important quotes. Their job is to create the connections, discuss them, and then write about their connections to conclude the activity. I love this activity because we have had some amazing conversations about books! 

Here are some hexagons that my co-librarian created for this novel: 

Express (Music): 

High school students love music. This is a great activity that gets them thinking about the characters in their book and the song lyrics they listen to. We ask students to choose a character from the novel and create a playlist they think the character would listen to; this playlist should reflect the character's personality. The best part of this station? They are able to access their phone and their music for this activity. Once they create a playlist, they can dive deeper and choose a favorite song, write down the lyrics, and explain why they chose that song for their character. 

        

If you would like to do a novel study and complete these stations, you can access them through TPT. 

Dear Martin CREATE Stations (FREEBIE)

Writing Stations to Support 10th Grade Students and PERSUASIVE WRITING

 

The writing SOL is right around the corner! There is so much preparation throughout the month, and I love teaching writing! We have set up a variety of stations for students to write, evaluate and highlight. The acronym we use for our writing stations is CLEAR. Everyone needs to aim for a clear and concise essay. We turn the library into a writing lab for a few weeks in February and March to cycle through all of the 10th-grade English classes. 

Here are our stations: 

C - Create a HOOK

L - Lead with a THESIS and LAUNCH the VOCABULARY

E - Execute the PLAN for each paragraph: Transitions, Claim, Evidence, Reasoning 

A - Analyze the DRAFT, highlight the different parts, and ADD/ENHANCE the draft. 

R - Rate it! Using the 4, 3, 2, 1 system, the students will RATE several drafts using a rubric.

We wanted to start with a theme that could be appealing to students, and we wanted the stations to be as engaging as possible. I created this meme to get us started hoping to get a couple of laughs. 

To kick off the stations, we come together as a whole group and create the THESIS. This allows us to deconstruct the prompt together and then create a solid thesis the students can use for the other stations they will be visiting.  

First, we discuss the prompt and decide our stance. Which is best? School or Work? Students write down their opinion; then students are challenged with drafting three reasons for their opinion. Once they have their opinion and three main ideas, we work on putting the elements all together in ONE sentence making sure we have parallel ideas. We avoid using the pronoun, you (which students love to do in a thesis). This is all done on a worksheet that I collect for the teachers to grade. They will also need this thesis worksheet for some of the other stations. 

Create a HOOK: 

Once the thesis is created, students start to rotate to the other stations in any order. We divide the students into groups of 4 or 5. The HOOK station gives students examples of hooks, and this station asks them to create three different hooks for their prompt. This will allow them to draft different versions and find the one they like the best. I normally tell students to have an idea of what type of hook they think they want to use before going into the test. 

 

Launch the Vocabulary: 

This station requires index cards, a hole punch, yarn, word banks, glue sticks, and pictures from a variety of magazines. To start, students receive word banks that are divided into 3 groups: adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Using the word banks, they choose 8 of their favorite words and create word flashcards. On the front of the index card, they write the word; on the back, they write the meaning. They choose a picture from the pile of magazines, and they glue a picture on the back of the index card that reflects what the word means.  If a student likes to draw, they can sketch the word's meaning. Once they have several of these completed, they punch a hole in the stack and tie them with some yarn. This becomes their own personal word bank for the rest of the year. They learn to read, spell, pronounce, and write the word

Execute the PLAN 📰

I always teach my students to follow these steps: 

✅write the thesis 

✅draft a paragraph plan

✅create draft one

✅edit the draft and add to it! 

✅check over the final draft 

Creating a paragraph plan as part of the planning process is always a recipe for success. It allows the students to get their ideas down in short sentences and thoughts. Filling in a paragraph plan can also ensure that they don't forget a transition or a main idea statement.  We do several of these with practice prompts just so they can have the paragraph plan memorized for the day of the test. Our paragraph plan has them create an outline for the three body paragraphs that include a transition, their claim, evidence, and reasoning. 

Analyze the DRAFT

This is a great station because we give the students an essay that has an SOL score of 4. They need to locate the different parts of the essay, highlight them, and even add to the essay if it is missing a part. For example, they are asked to locate the thesis and highlight the three main ideas in green. They find the transitions and highlight them in yellow.  They locate vivid vocabulary, and if there are no descriptive elevated vocabulary words, they find a place where they can add them. This is a great station that challenges students to read and analyze an essay that fulfills the persuasive writing rubric. 

Rate the FINAL COPY

We turn our students into the teacher with this station, and they have the opportunity to score writing samples that were submitted in previous years. We print off papers from our district that have received a variety of scores. Their job is to use a chart and rate the essays. They need to explain their rating and highlight the different parts of the essay that were either done well or have an element that needs to be fixed. 

FINAL STAGES

After we complete our stations and the students have collected all the writing tools for their writing toolkit, I give them a chart they can keep with the CLEAR writing steps they can apply to their essay writing.  Students also have the option to take their essay to the final stage and put all the parts together to complete the full 5 paragraphs.  Using the new writing tools they compiled through these stations, they can produce their final copy on the computer. 

1. Choose a favorite hook from the three that were drafted in station one.

2. After the hook, add the thesis from the thesis worksheet to complete paragraph one.

3. Use the paragraph plan that was drafted in station three and type it up adding several sentences and details to the body paragraphs fleshing it out and turning ideas into full sentences and details. 

4. Add a conclusion paragraph. 

5. Once the students have a draft, they analyze it for transitions, vocabulary, compound sentences, and figurative language similar to what they accomplished in station four. 

6. Finish up the essay by rating it and giving it a potential score. 

   If you would like our persuasive writing library  

   station information, worksheets, and signs, you can  

   purchase it HERE. 

Kindergarten and First Grade: A Winter Lesson - Community Helpers

 Kindergarten and First Grade Lessons: Community Helpers 

If I am being honest, kindergarten is the reason I created library stations. I have worked with the most talented kindergarten teachers on earth, and I could never do what they do from year to year. Whew! They have a true talent. 

When I was the elementary school librarian, the resource team had kindergarten every day for a 45-minute block normally in the afternoon and after lunch. They would sit for no more than 10 minutes to listen to a book, and then they were off. In order to provide something productive for them to do that related to their classroom content (this was always important to me), I decided to create stations that would occupy them and keep them engaged. 

You can check out the CREATE station structure and explanation HERE from one of my previous blog posts. Each station is color coded and students rotate through each activity once a week. 

READ-ALOUD OPTIONS: 

We read all kinds of community books. Books that build community, support community, show love in the community, and of course jobs in the community. There are so many aspects and amazing picture books that cover all community themes. Here is my list in progress with links...

I am Enough 

Written by Grace Byers, the link will take you to activity guides and teaching guides. This is a beautiful book that focuses on how we are all here for a purpose. 

The Branch  

The community comes together to fix the town after an ice storm. The young girl refuses to let a branch from her favorite tree get hauled away. She is able to repurpose it into something really special with the help of a neighbor. 

Strictly No Elephants

This is a heartwarming story about friendship and acceptance. 

Can I be Your Dog 

The sweet dog in this picture book goes around town looking for a new owner. He tries the baker, the fire station, and other places around the community until at last, he finds a home. 

Curious Garden 

The young boy in this beautiful picture by Peter Brown discovers an old train track in the city that has become overgrown. He decides to create an urban garden and tends it throughout the year. A great story about beauty that can grow in the most unique places. 

Snowmen at Work

Snowmen have busy lives at night. They have careers as dentists, grocers, and mechanics to name a few. They are each responsible for taking care of and being part of their community. This is a fun book with great illustrations. 

COMPUTER STATION: 

A computer station is a great option because students can work independently on various coding activities, reading activities, and digital escape rooms. For kindergarten and first grade, I normally find a choice board with books they can listen to. I found this great one on the bitmoji Facebook group. 

Click to VIEW the COMMUNITY Choice Board.  

Click to MAKE A COPY and EDIT the COMMUNITY Choice Board.

I love the various bitmoji Facebook groups! There are so many resources that people share! 

ROBOTS:

We have two options for robots in kindergarten and first grade: alpha robots and Bee-Bots. Bee-Bots are awesome if you have the community map. Learners can code Bee-Bot and have Bee-Bot visit different parts of town. For more detailed information, here is a blog post about our Bee-Bot robots.  This is a great robot for our community helper thematic unit. 

ENGINEERING: 

 

Garden gears are not only great for engineering hands, but they also work well to show the importance of the community working together. This station relates back to the book, The Curious Garden and students are excited to create their own gardens with butterflies, bugs, and interlocking gears that all need to work together. 

ART: 

After reading Snowmen at Work, we discuss the different jobs the snowmen have in the community. 

Some of these jobs include dentist, mechanic, teacher, grocer, baker, firefighter, and librarian. 

Discussion questions we reviewed as a class in order to summarize the story and check for understanding: 

What is a dentist's job? How does he help us? 

What is something a mechanic fixes?

Where does a grocer work and what do they do

The complete lesson plan I created with activities and the Quivervision coloring page can be found on the Quivervision website here. Students color the snowman and decorate his hat to reveal what type of job in the community he fulfills. Once they have finished, they can turn the image into augmented reality and discuss their snowman's community job with their group. 

Looking to use Quivervision as an art library station? Here is a tutorial on how you can get started: watch the video. There is also a great slideshow to get you started that you can access here.

THINKING LAB:

For the kindergarten and first-grade thinking lab station during our community helpers unit, it is great fun to have students put together different challenges from the Lakeshore fairy tale steam bucket kids. In my elementary library, we purchased: 

Little Red Riding Hood (create a basket)
Three Little Pigs (create a house) 
Three Billy Goats Gruff (create a bridge) 
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (create chairs that support the weight of the bears). 

Students have to think, plan, design, and build. This is a great station and an excellent use of the money we raised through our book fair. 

LEGOS: 

We love building lego storyboards. Students can create a lego community with minifigures and discuss their community creation with their group. There are so many opportunities for creativity. For some classes, we have the legos divided up in bins and for others, we created lego binders that had a lego board and a pencil pouch filled with legos. This was a one-stop lego station that had everything organized and ready to go for the students.