What might work well as a portable work station? Where will I store these neatly? What materials will we need here? Where will students use these in the classroom… on the floor, at a desk, in the hall? These are just some of the questions you might have about portable work stations. Take a look at the following photos and ideas from Spaces & Places.
Wire cubes on a tabletop create a storage area for portable stations in this fifth-grade room. Each basket holds a separate station complete with a label naming it and materials needed inside the basket.
Students practice buddy reading using these portable materials stored in a basket. They wear buddy reading visors from a dollar store for novelty (and to keep buddy reading fun). On the right, upper-grade buddy reading materials are stored in a portable basket and carried to another area of the room where a pair of students works together.
Tri-fold project board is used as a portable writing station. Kids set it on the floor and write on clipboard in this fifth-grade classroom as an extension to the writing they do during writer's workshop. The board holds ideas and student writing samples to give kids ideas for their writing practice here.
A portable drama station for kindergarten includes a retelling board (in background) and props and books for retelling.
Portable poetry stations are used in these two classrooms. In the top photo, poetry books are stored in a basket with poetry task cards. In the bottom photo, precut and pre-typed poems taught with in shared reading are stored in a basket and can be glued into kids' poetry notebooks where they visualize and illustrate them.
Debbie Diller 