Poster Centers

Material from a previous blog:

Poster Centers are an idea introduced to me by Sue Patrick to be utilized along with herWorkbox System.  We have been using them & my boys have really enjoyed them.  Although we use them during our workbox time poster centers could easily be added to anyone’s school day with success.

In the photo above L4 is doing one of his favorite posters which is a counting & number recognition poster.  It is called Colorful Crayons.  There are 11 cards (which we keep in a ziplock bag) that have crayons pictured on them ranging from 0 to 10 crayons.  I got the crayon cards from The Dollar Tree.  Then I used a regular piece of posterboard & added library pockets which you can purchase from Oriental Trading Company or easily make from paper yourself.  I printed the numbers on the outside of the library pocket & then added the corresponding number of dots below (so that as L4 tries to place the cards he can count the dots if he does not recognize the number.)

The benefits of poster centers are many, when used correctly.  One major advantage of posters is that they are cheap & readily available.  The Dollar Tree & Walmart have even started carrying educational posters, maps & placemats.  If you are lucky enough to have a school supply store near your house you can get a poster about practically anything for about $2.  And as you can see above you can make your own!  The first poster we used was a small poster about the weather that was folded inside a free catalog from a school supply store as a sample.  The KEY to making posters work in your school day is to make them interactive!

Imagine all the posters you have around your house that no one ever reads or uses.  Now imagine making those posters NOT something to look at but something TO DO instead.  The easiest way to do this is to have 2 identical posters!  One you keep whole as the background & the other you cut up- picking & choosing words, pictures, etc that you want your children to learn.  Take those pieces & laminate them & add velcro so that your child can build on the background poster.  For example, we have an ABC poster.  We use one to hang on the wall.  I have cut the letters (upper & lowercase seperately) & the pictures that go with each letter out from the second poster.  L4 can match the uppercase letters where they go.  On another day he can match the lowercase letter & E6 can work on beginning word sounds by matching the picture that goes with each letter pair to where it goes.

Children really enjoy them & they allow them to learn while getting up & moving around.  If you want to use single posters you already own just photocopy small portions, draw them free hand or add vocabulary words or some other component.  

I have seen  some really great posters done for older students using maps, posters with geography terms, Roman numerals & more.  Another benefit is that although posters are large they don’t take up floor space & can easily be stored behind a cabinet or under a couch or bed.

material from a previous blog