• Teachers create learning centers to help students practice what they have learned in class.school room image by Alfonso d"Agostino from Fotolia.com
  
  Elementary school teachers use classroom learning centers to help their students solidify what they have learned in class. Students work in small groups or individually to play center games or complete center activities. Create classroom learning centers for all areas of the curriculum, including math, reading and writing.
  
  

Estimation Station

• Elementary school teachers plan math centers for their students to practice the skills learned during guided instruction. In this example from the A to Z Teacher Stuff website, teachers use Goldfish crackers to teach kids about estimation. The teacher begins with a bag of Goldfish crackers and an empty fishbowl. When they introduce the math center, choose one student (maybe the Student of the Week) to fill the bowl with as many crackers as they choose. When groups go to the Math Center during the next few days, they look at the bowl of crackers and make estimates about how many crackers they think are inside the fishbowl. At the end of the week, the teacher counts the crackers at the front of class for all students to see. Students see how close they were with their estimates.
  
  

Vivid Sentences

• Students need lots of practice to become proficient writers. On Mrs. Oltmann's website, she outlines many Writing Center ideas to use in an elementary school classroom. In one center activity choice, students learn how to write "Vivid Sentences." The teacher places a box of 3-inch-by-5-inch cards onto the writing center table. On each card, she wrote a boring sentence without any description. When students go to the writing center, they start by choosing a card. On a piece of paper, students rewrite the sentence on a piece of notebook paper, adding vivid verbs and adjectives to create a vivid sentence. Then, they choose another card and write another great sentence. Students turn in their paper to their teacher, showing her the new sentences.
  
  

Mystery Sack

• Teachers can use learning centers to help reinforce students' word attack skills and knowledge of word families. In this activity from Ms. Hill's website, students practice with Bossy "R" words and sort them on word cards. Words such as "first," "dirt," "her" and "nurse" are known as Bossy "R" words. Students are learning the differences in spelling of these words, despite the fact that they all have the same "er" sound. For this center, the teacher prints out and laminates the Bossy "R" picture cards and cut them out. She puts them all into a mystery sack for the center table. When a student goes to this center, they start with a word card divided into three sections: "er," "ir" and "ur." When the student pulls out a picture card from the mystery sack, she places the picture onto the correct section on the word card. The student continues until he sorts all picture cards.