The next page presents an illustrative full-day schedule featuring four small-group periods in the morning and four in the afternoon. The essential advantage of a full-day schedule is that it allows children to engage in English Language Arts/ELA instruction at the teaching table in the morning and again in the afternoon for mathematics and science instruction. Furthermore, children participate in collaborative practice at the worktable in the morning and afternoon, which may or may not involve an adult. This comprehensive approach to a full-day schedule is designed to optimize learning outcomes.
Using a Rotation Chart to Manage
Small-Group Activities
Using a Rotation Chart as a visual road map for participation helps teachers and children know how to participate and how daily activities will occur. Most teachers use data and create 3–4 small-group memberships.
The names of colors are used to identify small-group memberships, e.g., Blue Group Red Group. The top area of a Rotation Chart identifies assigned small-group memberships. Teachers assign children to small-group memberships by using a homogeneous, or similar-skill, grouping format when they want to focus a lesson on specific skills and provide explicit instruction and feedback. Heterogeneous, or mixed-skill, groupings are used for collaborative practice in learning centers. Group memberships are changed as children develop competencies and their needs for instruction change.
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Colored squares help designate group memberships with young children who cannot read print. Later, once children are accustomed to routines and procedures, you may use other naming conventions, such as animals or vehicles, to identify group memberships.
A rotation chart may be constructed using a poster board and sticky materials to attach child names or colored squares to identify group memberships and the names of small groups. Use these steps to assign small-group memberships and create a Rotation Chart:
1. Use these steps to assign small-group memberships and create
a Rotation Chart:
2. Print each child’s name on a separate piece of poster board,
and attach names at the top of the Rotation Chart to illustrate
assignments in small groups.
3. Construct four squares using each color: yellow, blue, red,
and green.
Attach a colored square at the top of the Rotation Chart to identify the group name. Attach the second colored square at the bottom of the Rotation Chart to indicate activities in which each group will participate. Continue with the third and fourth squares.
The bottom of the Rotation Chart indicates the order in which each group will participate in activities. Looking at the Rotation Chart, children know whom they will work with and when they will work with adults or choose learning centers.
The Rotation Chart provides a visual road map showing children where they will go and with whom they may participate.
Displaying Activity Changes and Choices
A Rotation Chart helps teachers implement flexible grouping using similar-skill grouping for instruction at the teaching table and mixed-skill grouping for guided practice at the worktable. However, when children attend learning centers, they naturally form mixed-skill, heterogeneous groups because two groups always attend learning centers simultaneously. A Rotation Chart displays activities and choices. When it is time to change activities, a teacher or a child moves the colored squares on the Rotation Chart and indicates where small groups will attend during the next small-group time or rotation.
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How to use a Rotation Chart:
1. A child may be assigned as the Chart Caller, who uses the Rotation Chart to guide children to activities. The Chart Caller stands near the Rotation Chart and in front of the other children. The Chart Caller announces how small groups will participate at that time, saying, “Red Group will go to the teaching table, Blue Group will pick a center, Yellow Group will go to the worktable, and Green Group will pick a center.”
2. The Chart Caller then directs groups to their activities by saying, “Red Group, go to the teaching table now, please.” Children assigned to the Red Group stand up and go to the teaching table. “Yellow Group, go to the worktable now, please.” Children assigned to the Yellow Group go to the worktable and begin working.
3. Children in the Blue Group will choose centers first, followed by the Green Group. The Chart Caller may say, “Blue Group, raise your hand when you have chosen a center.” The Chart Caller calls upon each child assigned to the Blue Group, and each child names the center of their choice. The Chart Caller responds, “Go there now, please.”
4. Once the children in the Blue Group have chosen a center, the Chart Caller listens to the center choices of the children in the Green Group. After directing the children to activities, the Chart Caller joins his or her group.