Managing Math Centers

When it comes to math centers, most teachers have PLENTY of ideas. BUT, managing all of those centers often is a different story! There is always another idea book, a picture on pinterest, or a product on teacherspayteaches. Such great ideas! Then we try it and say, never again! The fabulous idea just didn't translate once you involved children! It often isn't the activity, it's the management of the activity that cause stress to both us and the kids! This post shares how Megan and I manage our centers.

Developing Groups

First, we develop our groups. We put our kids into groups that we call "families". A family includes a group of heterogeneous kids, all personalities, a mixture of boys and girls. We are trying to establish a group of kids that will work together, not play together. It is best to not put "friends" in the same group! We want 5 families.

Developing Center Areas

Then, we divide our room into 5 work zones. Each zone is clearly marked with a tag. This lets the children know the location of each work zone or center area. In Megan's room, she uses a jungle theme. Each of the 5 signs is a different jungle animal.

Management Board

The management board contains the 5 jungle animals and blue cards that list each family. When it is time to go to math centers, the children located their name, look to see which animal is above their name, locate that sign in the room, and move to that center. Each day, we move the groups to the next area. By Friday, they have been to all 5 areas.

Center Storage

In each center that is a "have-to" center.  These are stored in plastic shoe box tubs on a small shelf. There are two sets in this picture. The green tubs are for math and the yellow tubs are for literacy. These items change each week.

There are also "can do" centers. Instead of children rotation to another center area when they finish the "have-to" cdenter, the children stay in the same area the entire math block. Once they finish their "have-to" center, they look in the storage unit in their area to find a "can-do" activity. These can be games, puzzles, anything math related. I change these about once a month. I have 5 of these storage units, one in each area.

I'm Done!

Since we have "can-do" centers for early finishers, we never hear "I'm done."  Our have to centers are product based.

Another have to center....

When they finish their have to centers, they place the work in this yellow tray. No bringing it to use as we are pulling our small groups. We can check the work at another time.

I hope this post helps give you some ideas on managing math centers.