Centers are a fantastic way to create an interactive and dynamic classroom environment while allowing the special educator to work with small groups of students. The ability to have paraprofessionals run engaging centers is essential, as well. It’s important to be thoughtful when planning centers in a self-contained environment because you want them to be straight-forward enough that paraprofessionals can run them. You might also want to make sure paraprofessional centers touch upon your students’ IEP goals.
In this blog post, we’ll delve into a treasure trove of easy-to-implement center ideas that a paraprofessional can implement. These ideas will also captivate your students and support their individualized learning needs.
Fluency/Spelling Center
A fluency or spelling center is super easy for a paraprofessional to run. There is a surplus of topics students need to be fluent in. Keep a list of targets each student is working on. They could be working on sight words, spelling words, letter sounds, letter identification, shape identification, addition/subtraction facts and more! Put the content on index cards and have your paraprofessional “quiz” students on the cards. If you’re tired of using index cards, another way to practice fluency skills is to use fluency strips! Check them out below.
Sensory Exploration Center
Sensory bins are super fun, but they do need adult supervision. I can’t count how many times I’ve had beans fly across the classroom! Have your paraprofessional not only supervise appropriate play in a sensory exploration center, but have them target play and social skills goals. Some goals that come to mind include sharing, staying in their designated area, commenting with their peers, and more! You can even use the “baby pool” hack! Put the sensory bins inside a baby pool for easier clean up.
Fine Motor Center
Paraprofessionals can run a center to work on cutting, lacing, tracing, copying, etc! Your fine motor center doesn’t have to be fancy or take time to prep. For students working on cutting, I’ve given them paper strips to cut up and put into a plastic bin. Then, the students who need to work on gluing will paste the strips onto paper to make a collage.
Here are my favorite fine motor activities from Amazon:
Daily Work/Reading/Math Center
One of the most effective center I had my paraprofessional run was one in which the same materials were utilized, but there was a different activity each day. This could center around reading or math skills. For example, the student reads one story the entire week and completes a different daily activity. An example in math could be the student works on the same math skill all week but with different manipulatives each day. This approach makes it easy to plan and easy for your paraprofessional to know what to do. Check out some of my resources that are easy to follow and can be used all week!
Social Skills Game Center
A super easy paraprofessional center to implement is a social skills game center. Playing simple turn-taking games during the day practices turn-taking and communication skills. It also infuses some fun and laughter into the school day. The game center will surely be a favorite amongst your paraprofessionals and students. Check out a blog post I wrote with my game suggestions for students with significant behavioral needs.
Independent Work Center
Independent work is crucial to help a self-contained classroom survive. However, many of our students come to school without any independent skills. Therefore, without oversight, we cannot expect students to complete an independent work center immediately. Paraprofessionals can help oversee and manage independent work centers. Teaching paras how to use the least to most intrusive prompts is important. This will allow students to complete the independent work center with as little help as possible. The goal is for the student to complete independent work without a staff member with them. Click here to join my resource library to download a graphic showing the least to most prompts. This is a great visual to post in your classroom as a reminder for you and your paraprofessionals.
Structured Play Center
Structured play centers are similar to independent work centers but involve what you think: play! Students can pick from centers like Play-Doh art, dot art, pattern blocks, and geoboards. Step-by-step visuals are included to help students make specific creations. Check out this blog post to learn more about structured play centers!
IEP Goal Bins Center
Place specific hands-on materials that address the student’s IEP goals in a particular bin. I created one bin for each of my students. Your paraprofessionals can pick a different activity each day. Eventually, I added a simple data sheet for the paraprofessional to complete. Some activities I might put in an IEP goal bin include file folders, task cards, adapted books, or worksheets.
I hope you found helpful ideas for centers that your paraprofessional can run. The bottom-line is you need to find activities that are straight forward and easy to implement. That way, you can spend more time teaching!