Collaboration in Centers

I’ve been thinking a lot about centers since my article discussion.  The article that I used (http://cte.jhu.edu/ELC3/Uploads/ELC_78/centers_and_differentiation.pdf) and the article Nicole presented on (http://www.reading.org/Publish.aspx?page=RT-61-1-Fisher.pdf&mode=retrieve&D=10.1598/RT.61.1.4&F=RT-61-1-Fisher.pdf&key=E425A2BF-F244-4E36-8F19-B982D91E44EF) both talk about how important collaboration and communication are in literacy centers.  This prompted me to think about my centers and the level of collaboration that takes place during center time in my classroom.



For the most part my structured centers, or my “must dos,” don’t require collaboration.  They are usually things like writing about your favorite part of the story, or draw and label the problem and solution of the story.  I am planning to add “theatre” as one of my structured centers so then at least one of the four would be an interactive center.  I can try to make the other structured centers more collaborative by modeling how to talk about what you write with a partner before you start to write.  



Most of my unstructured centers are more interactive.  I have things like ABC games and puzzles, reading (independently or with a partner), spelling word wall words on the Promethean board, making play dough letters, writing around the room.  Even for the unstructured centers that are independent activities, like writing around the room, my students know that they are allowed to help each other and talk while working.



My math centers are a different story.  My structured math centers are usually worksheet based and related to the previous weeks lessons.  Some of the worksheets are created by me or another member of the kindergarten team at my school and some are from workbooks.  For example, this week one of my centers was to cut out letters and numbers from a sheet and paste them onto another page, with the letters above a line on the page and the numbers below.  We taught positional words the week before so this was a review of above and below, and was also an introduction to sorting which we were learning that week.



The unstructured centers are more fun, math games and puzzles, manipulative's, math literature, and Promethean board games.  I’m sure I could come up with creative activities for the other centers... but I like having the review work because it is a built in formative assessment for me.  Each week I get to see how my class internalized the information from the previous week and if they are able to apply it individually.  I’m hoping this does not make me a horrible teacher for liking my few centers that are worksheets.  Thoughts?