Take Apart Center
~ from Susan Nations
Co-author of Primary Literacy Centers; Making Reading and Writing STICK and So Much Stuff, So Little Space Organizing the Learner-Centered Classroom

 One of my favorite "stations" when I taught first grade was what we called the "Take Apart Center". Parents donated old toasters, VCR's, radios, and other small appliances. I supplied the center with safety goggles, screwdrivers, and other tools to take apart these gadgets. When I could find diagrams of the appliance I would add it to the center. The kids would occasionally take pieces and put them back together to make strange
configurations. They would write about their "new" gadget and its uses. Occasionally we even took pictures of their creations and posted it with their description. It was really a lot of fun and a great way to facilitate language play and manipulation. The only problem I had was determining who got to go and when. We finally had to have a sign up sheet and that took care of the problem.