Literacy Center/Adventure at Dollar Tree!

I LOVE the Dollar Tree! I loved them even before they created their teacher section, but now that they have, it's my guilty indulgence! I am trying to be more creative in my literacy centers, so I went looking for inspiration yesterday. This is what I came up with!

Since I have multiple levels in my classroom (from Primer to 4th!), I need to make differentiated centers. We have been working on plural nouns, so that is the focus when I introduce it this week.

I used the blue blocks for alphabet letters, red for blends and digraphs at the beginnings of words, green for vowel combinations, and orange for endings. In hindsight, I'm wondering if I should have taken the "Boggle" approach and put different letters on each block instead of the same on all 6 sides. Oh well! That could be another project for another day! :) I've stored the extras in a pencil pouch I also picked up at the Dollar Tree, so the total cost of the project was:
blocks (2 pouches) $1.00 each
egg container $1.00
pencil pouch $1.00

Not too bad for $4.00!!!!

Students will write on dry erase boards the words they have created and show to me by the end of centers OR take a picture with the digital camera (depending on how crazy it gets in our room!). I thought about doing a cute template, but realize that's a lot of paper, and in our class, we're trying to conserve (we recycle all paper and plastic bottles, which I take every couple of weeks to our local transfer station!).

I'll post more as I create them! Got to love Pinterest - it's taken me beyond the traditional centers (and granted, some of them are great and I'm still using them!) and has helped me "spread my wings."