Tricks and Tips for the Teachers: Organizing and Managing Listening Center {A Weekly Linky}

{Collaboration and sharing is a great way to learn and grow as a teacher! Tricks and Tips for Teachers is a weekly linky party held every Thursday as a place for you to join in and share a post about a teaching tip or trick on your blog. Just grab the button above and link it back to this post. Then come back to this post and link up your blog post by using the linky tool at the bottom of this post. I can't wait to read your great tricks and tips and learn and grow together!}

One of my students favorite centers to go to is listening center!! 

While my students are at their centers they are working on and practicing targeted skills in independence while I work with students in small groups. Time is precious in the classroom and interruptions during small group instruction greatly hinder learning when "small" issues arise at centers. It becomes imperative that for the classroom to run successfully and for students to be successful, that centers are organized and managed.

Today's teaching tip is on how to organize and manage your listening center!

I believe that every primary classroom should be equipped with a listening center! Listening center has so many benefits for our students as they grow as readers! Students are able to enjoy reading books that are above their reading level, it aids their fluency as they hear reading modeled (this is especially beneficial for our striving readers), it promotes their listening skills, and students are able to track along with the print as they listen to the story.

For the first couple of years of teaching, I had 2 old tape players with a well-loved stash of cassette tapes and books left from many teachers before me. While it felt a little 1980's to be using cassette tape players, I was SO thankful to at least have something to use for a listening center. Sadly after many tapes being eaten and destroyed by our tape players, by my third year of teaching the tape players were no longer working and it was time to lay them to rest.

Thanks to Donors Choose, I was able to receive a new listening center and upgraded to CD players! But with the delicacy of using CDs, I needed an organization system that would be easy for my first grade students to independently use! When my CD players arrived I searched Pinterest for organization ideas, but came up empty handed. So when Pinterest failed (I didn't know that was possible!) it was time to put ingenuity to the test! Thanks to teacher brain insomnia, I finally thought of a system to organize everything and it has worked so well!

I use color coding circle labels {found HERE} to organize the Cds and books. All of the CDs go into a CD Wallet {found HERE}. 

Each book is kept in a ziploc bag. This may appear a little OCD, but since the books are all different sizes it is easier to store them and the ziploc bags serve as protection and help the books last longer too.

Each book title receives a number and I write the number on four circle labels:

-1 label goes on the CD

-1 label goes on the CD sleeve (I put a piece of packing tape over it so it won't fall off)

-1 label goes on the bottom right of the book (I put a piece of packing tape over it so it won't fall off)

-1 label goes on the top left corner of the ziploc bag (I put a piece of packing tape over it so it won't fall off)

For example: Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons is listening center book #29. When a student picks this book out of the listening center bin they then find the matching number in the CD wallet. Then when they are finished they put the CD back in the CD wallet by matching the number on the CD to the number on the CD wallet. The book also goes back into the ziploc bag and is returned to the listening center bin before the student picks out the next book to listen to.

I usually put 5-6 books out in the green listening center bin per week so that students are not overwhelmed by choices each week, but also have plenty of variety throughout the year. I store all of my listening center books not currently in use in my seat crates. 

Four students go to listening center at a time and they sit on the seat crates while they are listening. I want students to get right to work listening, so to help them get right to work and also to eliminate arguing I have assigned jobs at listening center based on the seat crate that students sit in. Students work in partners so that there are 2 students at each CD player. I use a Belkin splitter {found HERE} to allow more than one student to plug in their headphones to the CD player. 

The partner that sits on the dots is in charge of picking and putting away the books. The partner that sits on the flower crate is in charge of the CD player (getting the CD, putting it in, and starting the CD when they are ready) and of plugging in and taking out the headphones.

I have a sign at listening center to remind students of their job so that it limits interruptions while I am working with small groups. I just hand wrote the note and put it in an extra frame I had.

Each of my students has their own pair of headphones in our classroom that they keep in a labeled ziploc bog. Students keep their headphones in their table's headphone bin. The middle unlabeled bin on the bottom shelf holds a couple of extra classroom headphones as back ups and the unlabeled bin on the bottom right holds the CD wallets. I like having everything in one place for my students to be able to use. I find that when things are organized it makes things run smoothly!

I also have two important classroom jobs that help eliminate "small issue" interruptions during center time while I am working with small groups. I have a student that is the Center Manager and a student that is the Teacher Assistant {click HERE or on the picture for my classroom helpers packet}. 

The rule in my classroom is that if I am working with students at my small group table, the students who have a small problem or issue need to first check with the Center Manager. If the Center Manager doesn't know the answer or can't help, then they check with the Teacher Assistant. If the Teacher Assistant doesn't know the answer then they the rule is that they have to clean up the center and read quietly. 

Like anything in the classroom, students need modeling and practice in order to know how to use and be successful at listening center. Students also need modeling and practice on how to put things away at listening center. My rule is that if our classroom learning tools are not taken care of or put away responsibly that the tool, or in this case listening center, will not be able to be used for a little while. Students love listening center, so they work hard to be able to keep the privilege of using our wonderful learning tool! Students also need modeling and practicing on understanding big and small problems, so that they know when it is ok and is not ok to interrupt me while I am teaching at the small group table. 

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you as you organize and manage your listening center! I'm also including my listening center sign as FREEBIE for you! Click HERE or on the picture below to download it!

What tips and tricks do you have? I can't wait to hear!

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