Frequently Asked Questions About NO PREP Literacy Centers

If you have questions about NO PREP Literacy Centers, I have the answers!!

Q: How do I design effective literacy centers for the elementary classroom?

A: You can include anything in literacy centers that fit your students’ needs. You can use items that you are currently teaching as well as review ideas. Literacy centers should be a time for students to practice a concept to improve. 

Q: What grade levels are these No Prep Literacy Centers designed for?

A: These easy literacy centers with no prep activities have been specifically designed for second, third, or fourth grade classrooms.

You can see my second-grade units here.

You can see my third-grade units here.

And the fourth-grade units here.

Q: Are these units aligned with any state standards?

A: No, these no-prep literacy activities are not aligned with any state standards or curriculum. The units are designed to cover the skills most commonly taught in the designated grade level, so most teachers find these easy literacy centers very helpful.

Q:  What is special about these NO PREP Literacy Centers?

A:  These literacy centers were created with the busy teacher in mind. No Prep saves you time by making lesson planning and setting up your centers a breeze, as they are just print-and-go!

Q: What is included in each monthly unit?

A: These monthly units are jam-packed!

Each monthly unit includes:

• Literacy Centers that are print and go.
• Bonus activities 
• Direction Posters for students to follow to free you from having to explain.
• Detailed information telling how I use literacy centers in my classroom.
• Ideas of how to conduct intervention groups while other students are in centers.
• The year-long bundle includes a guide to the literacy skills and concepts covered for the entire year, along with the month(s) in which you can find them.

Q: Can these literacy centers help struggling readers?

A: There is a detailed “How to Use” information guide included. This will explain how to set up centers in your classroom so that you have more time to work with your struggling readers in an intervention group during the center time each day.

Q: Are answer keys included?

A: Yes! Answer keys are included!

Q: How long does it take to complete these activities?

A: Most of these literacy centers can be completed in one daily literacy rotation. However, sometimes there are activities included that are meant to be used for two weeks.

Q: What makes these centers “NO PREP”?

A: These units do not include color ink. Instead, color can be brought by printing the directions on color-copy paper. Any required cutting is all straight lines for easy and fast cutting. (Consider letting students do the cutting.) There is no need to laminate and prepare weeks in advance. Print, go, and use today!

Q: How do I store these units?

A: You have options with these centers! Simply throw everything away after using it and print again next year. Of course, if you prefer to save, you can choose to laminate it and keep it to use again during the year or next year.

Q: Can I use these no-prep literacy center activities more than once?

A: Yes! These centers can be used throughout the year. They are perfect for intervention, enrichment, review, and more!

Q: What are some printing options?

A: There is no color ink used in these NO PREP units. Just print and go on your choice of white copy paper or colored copy paper.

Q: How will these NO PREP LITERACY CENTERS help ME?

A: Included is a “How to Use” detailed information that explains how to use only five ELA centers each week, how to implement them, what to use in the centers, and how to keep those same five titled centers for the entire year to ensure that you have easy centers that work for you!

This setup makes planning and prepping so very simple, meaning you can leave the classroom on time each day to have more time to spend on your personal life and with your family!

And that my friends is just...
My Kind of Teaching!

Fall in Love with Math and Literacy Center Time

Do you struggle with center time? Using centers can be the most rewarding time of the day... but not when you have to spend precious hours each week prepping and getting ready for the centers. 

Planning and preparing for math or literacy stations can sometimes consume more time than the actual execution of the centers.

Choosing five centers and KEEPING those five centers all year long will be a huge time-saver. Using NO PREP and LOW PREP activities will save you even more time.

Read this blog post about how to keep literacy centers fun, simple, and easy with just five centers all year long.

This same idea can be used in math centers, no matter what skill or concept you teach.

Click here to read a blog post about math centers.

In the blog posts, I share how I found that five centers in math and five centers in language arts worked best for me. (Believe me; I tried several methods and strategies before I realized I was just making things too hard!)

In addition to using my no-prep centers, I tried to use things already in my classroom. This saved me both time and money.

Read this blog post about things you probably already have in your classroom to use in math and literacy centers.

You can find these forever freebies in my TpT store.

FREE Math Center Activity

FREE Literacy Center Activity

Use these FREE Center Labels to designate your centers in your classroom.

Click here to sign up for my emails and get a set of FREE no-prep math and literacy centers to try out in your classroom.

Helping you love center time is just...

My Kind of Teaching

How Centers Transformed My Fourth Grade Classroom.

There was never a time when I didn't use centers.  Using centers in the classroom made sense to me from pre-k to kindergarten and then on to first and finally second grades.  There were so many benefits to using centers in the classroom!  One day, my principal then told me that she was moving me to fourth grade.  WH-A-A-A-A-T??????

I was very happy and content in the primary grades.  I had plenty of reasons to try and convince her that I didn't belong in upper elementary.  

• I rarely used worksheets.
• I taught whole lessons that were short and to the point.
• I taught to my students' needs in small groups.
• I used centers All. Day. Long!!

(I thought for sure that the last one would change her mind!!)

She just smiled at me and said, "That's EXACTLY why I am moving you!  I want the fourth graders to have just as much fun as your second grade students do!"

I spent the summer worrying. HOW could I replicate what I had always done in the lower grades for older students?

It turned out that it wasn't hard at all.

In fact, it was magical!

Grab FREE math and literacy centers by clicking HERE!

No Prep Centers

I don't enjoy spending tons of time planning and writing lesson plans for someone else.  Teachers know what we are doing, right?

I studied the standards for 4th grade in both math and literacy and created a curriculum map and planned out my year.  (YES!  I loosely planned the entire year, and it saved me SO. MUCH. TIME!)

After I had my lesson plan calendar for the entire year in hand, I created centers that I could just print and go.

The students loved them, and they were sooooooo easy for me!

I planned out five literacy stations and five math stations I would use each week ALL YEAR LONG!

Instead of constantly coming up with new centers, I only had to change the activities.

It was SO easy!!  

Daily Math Spirals

Each day before our daily focus in math, we completed five questions in a spiral.  These five questions covered the five big domains in Common Core.  By focusing on just these five, students were getting a review, present learning, and a preview of things to come.

By adding the preview component, I was able to do a mini lesson on the same standard/concept for 20 days.  By the time we actually reached that concept in our curriculum map, the students had been exposed to it so many times that it was a breeze to tighten down the learning!

I projected this math spiral on my big screen at the beginning of math class, and students completed the questions in a spiral notebook.  Again, there was no prep on my part with BIG results for the students.

We kept it fresh by sometimes working through the questions as a whole group, in small groups, with partners, or independently.

It was easy for me to print one page of questions and use in small groups when needed.

Using the daily math spirals allowed me to add a variety of activities to my math centers because I knew the students had already had exposure to the concepts.

You can find daily math spirals in my TpT store for second grade, third grade, and fourth grade.  

Centers, Centers, Centers

Instead of planning elaborate centers, I kept things very easy.  I used my NO PREP math centers and my NO PREP literacy centers and then filled in with things I already had in my classroom!

When the school became 1:1 in technology with Chromebooks, I added digital activities to the mix.

My classroom was mostly a full day of centers.

For early finishers, I had them go to a center activity.

For small groups,  I pulled a center activity that students had already used from my no prep activities or they played a game that was used during center time.

For whole group, I used a center activity for the entire class as a teaching tool.  Turn it into a game, and change the entire dynamics!

These center activities were an important part of our day.

The Magic of Centers

There are so many benefits to using math and literacy centers during center time and throughout the day in many different ways!

1)  I was able to quickly utilize planning and writing in lesson plans.

2)  I wasn't constantly searching for new material to use.  I used the same activities over and over in my classroom.

3)  The center activities could be used over and over throughout the year in many different ways!

4)  While students were enjoying and learning during center time, I was able to fill in the gaps by utilizing small group teaching. 

Do you want to try out a few NO PREP math and literacy centers?  Click here to grab a few samples for FREE!

If you aren't using centers and center activities, you are missing out on one of the most fun and effective ways to teach and learn in your classroom!

If you want to return to this post later, just save this pin!

Using centers is just...

My Kind of Teaching