Why are organized math centers important for upper elementary? By having organized math centers, we create a structured and efficient learning environment for our students. There are so many ways you can organize your math centers, however, it is important to find a way that works for YOU! I am here to help you think through ways that will make organizing your centers easy for both you and your students. First, let's think about our school year. We have roughly 36 weeks of school. If you are like me, you do centers every week without fail. Therefore, you have a lot of centers! The best way to successfully run your centers all year is to have a plan in place that you like and stick to it.
Do you use Workshop Model in your classroom? In my online course, Elementary Math Workshop Academy, I discuss all aspects of organizing centers, creating groups, and running them effectively. I highly suggest checking it out if you use Workshop Model, or would like to explore this strategy in your classroom.
Traditional Weekly Math Rotations:
The traditional weekly rotations mean just that, each week, you will switch out your math centers, so there are new ones for students to complete. Each day of the week, students are assigned to visit a different center, whether they are with you at your teacher group, or in the other four centers you have prepared. When I used weekly rotations, I would always have four centers and my teacher group. Therefore each week, students would go to the following centers:
Teacher Group
Task Cards
Technology
Hands-On
Review
Bi-Weekly Math Rotations:
If you haven't checked out my other blog post about my Two Week Math Centers, this will teach you how to set up math centers to only have to switch them out every other week. If you use this strategy, you will only need to rotate centers 18 times, instead of 36! Doesn't that sound so much less stressful?! Here are the centers I use with my bi-weekly schedule:
Teacher Group (x2)
Task Cards
Technology
Hands-On
Review
Multiplication (or operations)
Math Games
As you can see, with my teacher group students still meet with me once a week. Math games can be variety of choices: another technology center, puzzles, card games, matching games, for example. Hands-On can also be a math game, but typically it involves something, even worksheets, that require students to use manipulatives.
Whether you decide to have weekly or bi-weekly rotations, it is crucial for you to have your centers clearly labeled and packaged for students to be able to easily find them and complete them without your assistance. I have my centers in a cube organizer. Each center is labeled in its own bin, and inside each bin contains all the materials they need to complete their center (besides their notebooks and pencils). This can include any manipulatives they will need, highlighters, expo markers, etc.. This way, students are not spending time gathering materials before being able to get started.
Set or Fluid Grouping
Now that you have chosen your rotation schedule and the direction you will go to set up your centers for student access, it is time to figure out your student groups. I wrote another blog post, Grouping Students for Success, which explains how to group students to meet their needs and why each strategy is beneficial to student learning.
Set Grouping
Here you will create groups, the traditional way. You will put students in set groups and assign them a center to go to each day. They follow a schedule, which does not change often. Students work with the same classmates in math each day, they just rotate what they are working on. For example, the blue group will go to technology on Monday, Teacher group on Tuesday, and so on. This system requires a lot more prep and creation time on your part.
Fluid Grouping
This system saves you so much planning time and allows students to work with various students. With fluid grouping, students are NOT in set groups and they do not follow a schedule. They pick their center each day and go where they choose and can be pulled into the Teacher group at any time. This is my favorite grouping strategy, as I feel it is the easiest to manage. I go into a lot more depth of this strategy in my online course, Elementary Math Workshop Academy . Students have to follow expectations, but other than that, they choose their center and I pull them whenever I need to into my Teacher focused group. Examples of my expectations are: students go to one center a day, they do not switch to somewhere else (unless I move them), only 3-5 students per center, and they cannot repeat a center until they have completed them all.
No matter how you decide to organize your math centers and what works for your classroom, the biggest factor of whether or not you will have success with it is how consistent you are. When you set up your centers, you have to give it time and be consistent with your routines and expectations, so students can get the hang of it. Fluid groups and bi-weekly rotations may take a little longer for students to grasp, but I promise you it is worth the time!!
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