newspaper literacy centers

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newspaper literacy centers
By Julianne

Here are some center ideas I got from a newspapers in the classroom workshop. You could have one center in your classroom be a "newspaper center" with rotating activities.

Have students find their spelling words in the
newspaper, cut them out and paste them on a paper next to the written spelling words.
Cut rhyming words from the newspaper. Mount them at the ends of lined paper. Try to make a poem using the words you found. Write the rest of the poem with a pencil. Illustrate it if you like.
A center my friend next door used last year was "make your own comic book". Have students at the center

choose a newspaper comic they like, cut it out and mount it on a piece of paper. They then must write all the nouns from the strip below it on their paper - or all the verbs, or all the describing words, or whatever you are working on. The finished paper then goes in one of those inexpensive 3 ring folders. At the end of the year each student should have a nice selection of comics.

Just some general ideas about centers - start slowly, introducing one center per day until students "get it". Insist that students respect materials. Remove students who do not. Try to group students across ability levels. In other words, don't put all your low students in one group. Literacy centers work best if there are high and low students in every group. That way the students teach each other. I love centers because they promote cooperative learning and are FUN.