Listening Center

  I think the area in which I excel the most as a classroom teacher is organization. I pretty much never have anything out of place in my classroom, everything has a place, it even has a place to be before it goes to its home! I am actually so quick to put things away it might be inefficient. I put things away BEFORE I am done using them sometimes. I drive myself crazy. I am going to share with you my listening center organization, it is super simple and just *POOF* came to me after four long years of tangled wires and upset firsties at the listening station. Its hard to teach a small group when you have kids tangled up in wires and crying..okay I exaggerate a little. But just a little. Here is my listening center as of today:

 

 

I have tried the Leap Frog touch pen & headphones books, a tape player, computer listening center. We don't have Ipads or anything that fancy at my school for listening as of yet. I have always wanted to have my kiddos enjoy a good listening center, but each year I end up putting it away because of battery issues, headphones breaking, walkmans breaking. You name it, each year it was gone by October.   I use Ikea tables and stools for my listening center. Click the pictures for the link to the item. They are both super cheap and absolutely adorable! They come in lots of bright colors too! I used black zip ties to hold two of the small black tables together! I got so tired of them shifting apart!

     Step 1:  I only have two students here at a time as personal preference. I use a two part headphone splitter, there are ones that split up to 6 ways. Click the picture to link to one I use in my classroom. You just plug it right into the headphone port in your CD/tape player and you can plug the headphones in! It really is great and the best part is its only $3!   

  Step 2: The first thing I did was use a basket to store the CD player, the books, and the CDs. I usually have about 2-4 choices and have not had problems with the students changing the CDs out by themselves. I keep a smaller basket in the big basket to store the CDs/tapes.  

  

 

 I threaded each wire through the basket handles on each side! WHAT. So simple and it literally solved all of my listening center problems in thirty seconds.

 

Here are some baskets that are similar and would work for two partners. I set the CD player in the basket, along with the books and smaller basket to hold the CDs. One set of headphones goes out the handle hole on the right and the other set goes out the handle hole on the left.  

    Step 3: Hang your headphones! I used two XLarge thumb tacks on the bottom on a bulletin board but you could use 3M or even a clothes pin with a tack on the back. I also color coordinated my headphones with colored Washi tape to match the tack they belong on for extra measure to keep them untangled!  

Its that simple! I did this in the beginning of October and I have not heard a single student asking for help with the listening center! A dramatic improvement, I used to spend 20+ minutes each day fixing it and being annoyed, now I only have to change out the books and CDs every month! Easy!  

  If you are looking for even more amazing ideas on how to organize you listen to reading center head on over to Sarah's Blog: Yee Haw Teaching in Texas to see the amazing way she stores her Books & CDs! I think I need to get started on that too! Mine are just in one big tub as of now! I hope this helps you get organized!