How to Bring Artful Literacy Centers™ to Your Classroom

Imagine your ideal literacy center. I bet it includes feeling prepared for each rotation, students that are highly engaged, and knowing that the class walked away with a new piece of knowledge. That’s the dream, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it can be hard to achieve this dream with traditional literacy centers. That’s why I created Artful Literacy Centers™. This new way to approach centers can push your students' thinking to the next level without complicating your planning or curriculum.

What are Artful Literacy Centers™?

Artful Literacy Centers™ are hands-on centers specifically designed to engage students and enhance literacy skills through the arts! When working through these centers, students will develop their artistic abilities and confidence and enhance their literacy skills by creatively exploring language. This integration of art and literacy is a unique way to encourage creativity, imagination, and critical thinking through activities like word collages and literacy sculptures.

Whether you’re looking to improve student literacy skills, develop problem-solving skills, or enhance self-expression, Artful Literacy Centers™ can be designed to meet your learning goals. Of course, just like traditional centers, you can also incorporate differentiation. Students can approach the tasks within the activities in different ways and at varying levels of complexity.

Difference Between Artful Literacy Centers™ and Traditional Centers

While most traditional literacy centers allow for students to move around a bit more than their typical seatwork, Artful Literacy Centers™ are specifically designed to be hands-on and engaging. 

Traditional literacy centers are very product-driven. They tend to focus on memorization and require students to practice basic skills. There tends to be a “right” and “wrong” answer as well. However, with Artful Literacy Centers™, students express literacy concepts through an artistic process. The emphasis is on critical thinking and imagination, and there are multiple ways that students can demonstrate their mastery.

Artful Literacy Centers™ are a great way to incorporate student choice and also recognize that not every student can demonstrate their knowledge the same way. Through this approach, teachers can actually better understand their students’ level of learning.

How to Learn More about Artful Literacy Centers™

Wondering how you can learn more about Artful Literacy Centers™ and incorporate them into your school or classroom? We offer a one-hour high-level overview of the centers with the goal of giving teachers a comprehensive understanding of the program. 

We also offer full-day workshops for schools looking for a more in-depth training experience. This full-day PD gives the same overview of the program as well as an in-depth demonstration of several centers.  

Finally, for schools ready to get started with the full program, we offer a weeklong intensive that covers a multitude of centers and provides a thorough understanding of the entire program. 

You can learn more about Artful Literacy Centers™ by visiting the website. You can also contact us for more information below!

I’m Amanda, and I align standards and integrate content to help teachers meet the needs of the Whole Child in art class! I have yet to find a standard that I couldn’t teach through art, and I want to share it all with you.

Not sure where to start with bringing art and content together? This freebie guide is packed with 25 ideas to align your art lessons with math and ELA standards. Your students will be crafting art and practicing algebraic thinking. Win-win!

I want all students to feel successful in the art room, so I created a standards-based Daffodil Collage lesson to do just that! The lesson includes an artist study, student reflection, and more, so push your artists to their full potential.

Follow along on my Instagram page for more tips on teaching the Whole Child in the art room!

Connecting art and content together doesn’t have to be mind-boggling. I’ve made it simple with 25 math and ELA art lesson starters - for free! Plus, I included 15 worksheets for students to reflect on their art-making journey.