In my classroom, math centers occur after a 15-20 minute group lesson. In that lesson I’ll introduce new skills and give students a chance to practice them together. Then, we jump straight into math centers, shifting gears. The goals are completely different in centers than in our group lesson.

Together, we learned and explored new skills. In small groups at their centers, the student’s time is better spent practicing skills they already know, working together with others at their table, and strengthening their independence. Plus, centers allow time for guided math lessons. I can work with one on one or in small groups with students who are struggling to strengthen the new skills we’re learning or the ones’ in need of some behavior management (try as we might, we all have them). 

Today we’re tackling how you can plan for success in these centers so…

1. Students can use their time wisely.
2. You can manage the classroom while simultaneously providing 1-to-1 instruction in small groups.

No one said teaching was easy y’all, but luckily, I’ve already solved this problem ?? (see what I did there?)

It’s All in the Timing

Let’s start here. I’m always getting questions about how long each center should be. And the honest answer is, it depends. Having taught at multiple elementary levels throughout my career, I’ve found it depends on three things:

• Your school schedule
• The level of your students
• Students’ age

In Kindergarten 10-12 minutes might be just perfect, in First Grade you can stretch that a little more to 15 to 20 minutes, and Second Grade 20 minutes or more can be doable.  You can also split your centers into 2 days if you need to – students complete half day 1 and the second half day 2 – get creative!

Of course if you’re looking for fun ways to incorporate digital practice, you know I’ve got you covered there too! 

Plan for Self-Management

Remember, we’re looking to create a space where students can be completely independent, managing themselves, and engaging in meaningful educational activities on their own so you’re free to work with small groups. Set yourself up for success by considering the following when planning.

Automaticity and Pre-Taught Skills

What skills do my students already know but need time to practice for automaticity? Math centers are not the time to introduce something new! It’s a perfect time, however, to give students an opportunity to practice previously taught skills that need cementing in their brain. For example, yes your kindergarteners might know how to add and subtract, but if they’re still counting on their fingers instead of automatically calculating in their head, this is a perfect skill to work on during math centers. Or your second graders mastering multiplication? Perhaps they need a fun way to practice those skills!  They don’t need to ask you anything, can work independently, AND get valuable practice time on important life skills. 

Differentiation

Where is there room for differentiating within a center so students can work on multiple levels simultaneously in a group? When you group students, considering their different skill levels is a great way to mix and match your classroom. However, it might not be productive for students of different levels to be working on the exact same activity. When planning centers, consider differentiated activities (or activities you can easily add differentiated options to) so students have the opportunity to challenge themselves instead of getting bored. Check these out to make your math center off the chart! 

Time Management

We don’t just teach how to tell time in math, we’re also giving our students a concrete way to practice time management. Two concrete ways to do this (while simultaneously promoting independence!) are…

• Gather the materials for each center into some form of bin so students have everything they need at their fingertips. This may take a little more prep time, but I promise you, it saves a tremendous amount of instructional time.
• Display a road map for your center time so students know what they are doing currently, what’s coming next, and how much time they have. Don’t know how this would look? I’ve created easy-to-use center slides complete with timers to cut down on your planning time  

Keeping the above in mind when planning is oh so important. But also make sure to keep track of what skills you’ve been practicing so you can track student progress. My guided math binder printable resource has a tracking page that helps you easily keep track of each student. Plus, if you’re keeping track along the way, you’ll know when students fall behind and be able to intervene and catch them up as necessary. I’ve also got a no-prep Math Intervention resource for kiddos that struggle. 

More Planning Tips

Looking for specific center activities to engage your students? Below are some of my absolute favorites — and my kiddos LOVE them too!

• GAMES! This is the heart and soul of our math center time!  We know that kids learn best when they are engaged and having fun. Some class favorites include:
  • Kindergarten
    • Back to School Math Games
    • Halloween Math Games
    • Thanksgiving Math Games
    • Winter Math Games
    • Spring Math Games
  • First Grade
    • Halloween Math Games
    • Thanksgiving Math Games
  • Second Grade
    • Halloween Math Games
    • Thanksgiving Math Games
    • Winter Math Games
  • Addition/Subtraction Bowling — using mini-bowling pins (or even just markers at the end of a table with a small rubber ball), students “bowl” and record their score by subtracting from 10. To differentiate, have students include the subtraction AND addition facts side-by-side.

• Glyphs! Who doesn’t love a little art that created a child-centered display mixed with graphing, data, and more?!
  • Jack O’Lantern Glyph
  • Turkey Glyph
  • Gingerbread Glyph
  • Penguin Glyph

• Digital Practice! We are relying on technology more than ever, and here are some of my favorite tech resources.
  • First Grade Digital Math Practice
  • ABCya! has some of the BEST **free** games for practicing all sorts of math concepts.

• Printable Curriculum Materials: Does your curriculum include printed materials for students to complete? That can make a great center without having to take up too much instructional time while still checking things off that curriculum list!
• Coding: It’s 2020 and kids need to learn coding. Full stop. There are a million wonderful free resources (that are also yes, you guessed it, GAMES!) for students to start building foundational coding skills. I recommend Kodable, ScratchJr, Osmo, Coding Safari, or Box Island, among others. 
• Unfinished Work Folder: Don’t forget that you can build in time for students who need extra time to complete assignments! And for those kiddos who always finish early, assigning some digital activities that require no prep for them to independently complete as needed is always a winner. 
• Guided Math: This center deserves a post all it’s own so we’ll tackle it in the next post, but suffice it to say that one of the main goals of all these centers is to create space and time for you to work with small groups or individual students for guided math. It’s just as important as guided reading!!! (uh oh, have I said that already a HUNDRED TIMES?!?! It’s that important y’all!) 

And don’t forget, if you’re new to math centers or trying to figure out a way to work in some guided math for the first time, allow yourself some time to learn the ropes. You’ll get things wrong, try again and eventually come up with a solution that works both for you and your kiddos. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were math centers! Take that first step, then another, and another until you’ve built a system that works for YOU and YOUR students.

Why Math Centers? 

Math centers give you and students an opportunity to differentiate skills and challenge themselves when appropriate. They allow students time to explore and build schema for important foundational math concepts they’ll carry into real life and higher level math learning in middle school, high school and college. You can easily pack a TON of practice into a short amount of time. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m usually working with about half an hour to 45-minutes of math each day, which isn’t long at all! Plus, it’s another early elementary opportunity to promote independence, working with others and problem solving (without running to you every five minutes). Finally, a huge reason why I love math centers is that they allow you time to have guided math lessons with individual students or small groups. We’ll cover this in a future post, because I’m a firm believer in guided math (right up there with guided literacy). 

Where to Start

A common frustration and question I’ve gotten from you guys via social media and email, is not knowing where to start with planning. One of the great things about math centers is that they’re flexible, no matter what your schedule you can make them work in your classroom. 

I prepare four or five centers (one of which is often guided math) for students to complete over two class periods. In these centers I always want to include something new we’re working on in addition to practicing and spiraling skills we’ve already learned. 

• New Skills — generally you want to introduce a new skill to the whole group, then allow students independent time to practice the skill in their centers. I’m an advocate for having at least two of your centers working on this new skill in different ways. This gives students of different learning types the chance to approach and master new skills in a variety of ways. 
• Review — Using information you’ve informally gathered from your math warm-ups, you may notice a skill or two your class needs to dust off. Include a review center for students to dust off old skills for use in the future. 
• Spiral Pre-Taught Skills — I really dislike the idea of learning something then leaving it behind forever. I see this a lot with students and the concept of money — we teach it once then don’t use it again for the rest of the school year. Use your math centers as a way to build old skills on top of new ones, spiralling them into more and more challenging activities for students. There’s an opportunity here for different students to complete the same activity at varying levels of difficulty so everyone is challenged in their own unique way. 
• Use Assessment Data —  Always be assessing y’all. The more data you have on each student and use that data to inform how you teach, the fewer students fall through the cracks each year.  Use that data to inform how you teach! I promise you, these early on assessments correlate directly with higher graduation rates later on! Use formal assessments from your school’s curriculum, informal observations you gather during calendar math and warm-ups, or data from any online programs you love. 

Plus, you can use data from your beginning of the year inventory using this free resource I’ve created. 

What’s that you say, FREE?

Yeah, you heard me right. What better way to start your school year than with an amazing free resource for your planning binder? I do go on about assessments, but seriously y’all it’s SO SO, let me say it again, SO important for student development. So important in fact, I’m offering a free “Beginning of the Year Math Assessment Inventory” for kindergarten, first grade and second grade. It includes shapes, number recognition, addition/subtraction fluency and SO MUCH MORE. Get yours today by signing up for The Teaching Texan newsletter, which sends helpful tips and tricks straight to your inbox a few times a month. You’re welcome in advance  

After you join our email newsletter below, you’ll receive a welcome email with the password to our free resource section of the blog.

[mc4wp_form id=”7580″]

Grouping Students 

Depending on your classroom, this can be a challenge. But it’s a great opportunity to group students differently from their literacy centers so they have the chance to interact and build relationships with more of their classmates. 

The main things to consider are student behavior and skill level. And remember, you can (and SHOULD) change these groups throughout the year. If a grouping isn’t working, it’s not set in stone! You should entertain the idea of grouping students of the same skill level (homogenous groupings) and varying skill levels (heterogeneous groupings) at different times throughout the year. This will help students develop both their math and social skills when working alongside different people each month or quarter. 

If you’re like me and LOVE an organizational tool to help keep all this straight, don’t worry y’all of COURSE I’ve got you covered. Planning and organizing for math centers is not so different than planning and organizing for literacy centers, and y’all know I love a color-coded binder print out to help me stay on track. In my next post I’ll share a link to grab a resource that is sure to get your organized and on track for math centers and guided math!

Last post we spoke about the importance of calendar math, which can be a great way to start the day, establish routine, and get your kiddo’s brains in gear. On top of this, I’m a huge proponent for additional math warm-ups during your designated math block. 

How long should my warm-up be?

Depending on your schedule and the length of your classes, you’ll spend varying amounts of time on your warm-up as opposed to centers (more on math centers in the next few weeks!) or your lesson that day. I recommend no more than 10% of your lesson block be spent on a warm-up. Meaning, if you’ve got 30 minutes for math, you can knock out a warm-up in 3 minutes or less. Sounds too short? I’ll show you some quick strategies for math warm-ups.

Of course, when establishing a math warm-up routine, you may need a bit more than 3 minutes to give instructions and ensure student comprehension, but once students learn a few activities, they’ll be able to quickly jump on board and even get excited about this quick “fire drill-type” activity. Because honestly that’s one of the biggest challenges with math warm-ups (and sometimes math in general), students find it boring or rote and are quick to disengage when they aren’t having fun. 

That’s where we come in — making math fun since the dawn of education! I encourage you to focus on the game aspect of math warm-ups, instead of making them another “lesson”. We know how much kiddos love games as opposed to “work” and this is just another opportunity to make learning fun.

In my recent calendar math post we spoke about “Take Down”, one of my favorite warm-up games for kindergarten and first grade. It’s quick and easy and kids love to play it. Plus, it gives your students a chance to practice being “good losers” as there’s no skill to winning. Additionally, I love when kids who are already “out” sit in the circle and count along with those still playing. They’ll start to count ahead and predict who will be out next, which is another great skill they’re engaging — prediction! 

Another quick and easy math warm-up I love (and kids do too), is a few rounds of Super Sundae Math Facts. Effective, ice cream-themed math fluency? Who doesn’t love that!?

Spiral those Skills!

Another thing to focus on during math warm-ups is spiraling skills they’ve learned before. While you may teach and introduce new games or activities for warm-ups, I’d stay away from teaching new skills or ideas during this time. Students should feel successful and smart at the end of the warm-up, not frustrated they aren’t quickly grasping a new concept. This helps them go into the rest of your math lesson with a positive and “can do” attitude, which is exactly what we want!

Tips and Tricks

• Group Activities

Whatever activity you choose, try not to single out any one student but stick to a group participation mentality. This isn’t the right time for students to feel “on the spot” in front of their peers. 

• White Board

A great way to get everyone involved from their seats is to use small white boards for students to give quick answers. My students LOVE using their personal white boards and getting to use the dry erase markers makes them feel like a teacher so I bring these out as much as possible. They can quickly write and show answers to me then erase easily so when they do make mistakes it’s over and done with right away. No biggie, they can just move on to the next question.

• Pair and Share

Another great way to warm-up is having students paired up and sharing their answers with each other. If they get something different, they’ll have to explain why and eventually (hopefully) come to the right answer as a team. You can use this opportunity to pair students of the same level so they can challenge each other OR students of varying levels so one can help the other and gets an opportunity to be the “expert”. Be wary of doing this too often as kids can be quick to label each other as “good at math” or “bad at math” and we don’t want them to put themselves or each other in limiting boxes!

• Take Notes

When students are paired up, you’ve got a great opportunity to informally assess them and jot down a few notes. This will help greatly when doing formal assessments throughout the year and when deciding what to include in your math centers as you’ll already know what skills students are struggling with. 

• Friday Favorites

On Fridays (or any old day you please because you’re a fun teacher!) I like to use our warm-up time to pull out a “crowd favorite” for students to play. They love it and they’re learning! 

To Differentiate or No?

There will definitely be DIFFering (see what I did there?) opinions on this one, but I say go for it whenever possible. Leveling your math warm-up gives you an opportunity to, as mentioned above, informally assess students quickly and daily. An easy way to do this is with one PowerPoint or Google Slide with 3 columns. I like to include several questions in each column. This way you can offer students (in pairs or as a whole group answering on their individual white boards) three levels of difficulty or options to answer to see who’s ready for new skills, who’s up for a challenge, and who’s still hesitant or lacking confidence. 

And heck, these can even be used as an early finisher option!

And guess what? I created a FREE template for you!

In fact, I’ve got a LOT of free resources for you because I’m all about working smarter not harder. Join my newsletter list below and you’ll receive access to the freebie section of The Teaching Texan website where the Addition & Subtraction Warm-Up Template and other freebies are housed. 

[mc4wp_form id=”7580″]

Remember friends, the sooner in the year you establish math warm-ups, the quicker and easier they will become for students. Plus, hopefully they’ll learn to be excited and energized by math for years to come and parents will be calling you teacher and educator of the year in no time!

It’s been about a week and a half since my [Math Intervention Binder] went live on TeachersPayTeachers, and I thought it’d be helpful to go ahead and give a more in-depth tour of this resource!

Number Sense 

 

 

 

 

Here is a kiddo working on a page from the number sense section. You can even here the little one next to him who is working on another number sense page for numbers 11-20.  Differentiation, people!