Differentiated Winter Workstations!

A few days ago I posted about students' goals - what they are, how students can track their progress, etc. (see here). As teachers, we all know that students have goals that they need to achieve by the end of the year so figuring out what the goals are the easy part. GETTING students to those goals is where the hard work comes in!

One way that I help students to achieve their goals is through scaffolding independent workstations. Last Wednesday I spoke about scaffolding workstations at my district's principals meeting and thought I would share some of those same ideas with you!

When teaching a new skill, there generally different tiers to mastering that skill (you can see tiers for alliteration here). The way we divide the skills on my campus is as follows:

Tier 1 is whole group instruction. Students in tier one gain an understanding after whole group instruction and can practice the skill independently.

Tier 2 is small group instruction. Students in this tier have a basic understanding but there is still some confusion and they need more practice during small group in order to practice the skill independently.

Tier 3 is small group or 1 on 1 instruction. These are the babies who are either really struggling or who are just beginning to understand a concept or a skill.

During small group or workstation time, tiers for the skill producing a letter sound might look like this:

Tier 3: Students have some knowledge of letter sounds and know what sound several letters make



Student on this tier can identify which picture begins with a given letter sound. This activity is a good tier 3 students because students are only given 2 options to choose from - one picture that begins with the given letter's sound and and one that does not sound anything like that letter's sound.

Tier 2 students have an understanding of most letter sounds and may only be miss a few sounds when being assessed. 


This activity is good for tier 2 because they have to identify which sound they hear at the beginning of the word and then find the letter that makes that sound.

Tier 1 students know their letter sounds and are ready to segment simple CVC words and spell them out.


For math I wanted to share a workstation that I have had for the past 5 years and has always been a class favorite! The kids love it because it is fun and interactive. I love it because it was easy to make and can be used to practice a ton of different skills! 

For this workstation I used a large piece of green felt cut into the shape of a Christmas tree, red and white felt cut into circles for ornaments, a dice, and different sized presents for ordering by size. 



For my tier 3 students, they can practice subitizing with the dice, counting with 1:1 correspondence, and ordering the presents below the tree from largest to smallest. 


When my tier 2 students go to this workstation, they can practice subitizing with the dice, counting with 1:1 correspondence, comparing groups, and ordering the presents below the tree from largest to smallest. 



For my tier 1 students, they can practice subitizing with the dice, counting with 1:1 correspondence, completing simple addition problems, and ordering the presents below the tree from largest to smallest. 

I love when I can find 1 activity that meets all of my students needs! 

Do you use tiers to divide your students into groups? What kind of things do you do to differentiate workstations? I LOVE hearing new ideas! 

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