Reflect
Read the center overview page linked below and then take a look at the MANY centers linked on our new math site. Choose one (or four!😉) centers recommended for your grade level and teach it to your class!
Consider
- What are your thoughts about incorporating centers into your math time? How might you organize them so that they are manageable for you and easy for your students to access?
- What center did you teach to your class? How did it go?
Respond and Interact
After exploring some of the centers, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above. Read our colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight or interesting possibility.
Centers are hands-on and engaging. I liked knowing that for 1st and 2nd grade centers should be an addition to the lesson taught. I have a small group for my k-sped math group. I would like to practice doing the centers with my students or in pairs. Centers are also a way for my students to interact and work with each other. I plan to try the write numbers activities with my k students.
ReplyDeleteI think the centers will be a great way for the students to do math without feeling like they're doing it, and they will be more eager to learn and stay engaged. I'm working with a couple of 1st and 2nd graders in Resource Room who are struggling to remember how to solve addition and subtraction problems, so I think I'll try the Subtraction Towers and Tower Build centers.
ReplyDeleteI personally love the hands on centers. With my small groups and short time together, I will try to work all week on a target area and incorporate a game or center to go with the lesson on Thursdays and Fridays.
ReplyDeleteLast week I used the Tower Build center with my 1st grade group, where students build cube towers making 10-20. They had so much fun that one of them made a comment on how this was way better than having to learn in their classroom. It was pretty awesome and they really enjoyed it. I also felt that one of my students who struggles counting to 10 without missing a number did really well and did not miss a single number while counting.
I have printed more of the centers offered on your centers page and I look forward to incorporating them into my groups next week.
I love the center time. Its a great way to engage my resource room students with games after they are done with learning the concept for a week or so. My second graders did play Dinosaur Subtraction game couple of weeks before. Now they are into the game and wanted to do play more games. Also my fourth graders did play with "Beat the Calculator" ,I can't tell how much they loved it. Now I felt even the students who feels math as boring are ready to participate in these games and get involved.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to incorporate the center page into my groups.
The centers do seem like a fun way of doing math without the students thinking they are doing math. I can see my 3rd grade Resource Room students liking this and it will not matter what level they are on.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of collaborating and sharing some of our centers so that students we share can feel confident using these in both spaces with their peers. The leveled options provide that differentiation we know is so important and gives our students entry points to these skills in a fun and rewarding way. Every child can attempt these and feel successful while having fun with math.
DeleteThe Centers have been a hit in our early implementers' classrooms. The kids don't want to quit playing. 😊 I especially love how the centers meet the needs of most (if not all) of our math learners. Our students who tend to struggle with math can find entry points and the centers offer our high achieving mathematicians opportunities to go deeper with the content and really THINK as they strategize.
ReplyDeleteThe Centers page is full of great options. Thank you! Can't wait to start using some of the activities. The idea TSnyder shared about having a target area during the week and then using a center activity on Thursdays and Fridays to reinforce the learning. This method may work great in my Resource Room.
ReplyDeleteThe centers look fun and engaging. I can see my resource students buying into the lessons more because they don't feel like math. My 2nd graders are currently working on the measuring unit in Math Expressions. I am going to try the one of the estimate and measure centers to help reinforce the skills we are working on in our small group.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea Terran. I was wondering how we do centers with our small groups.
DeleteI'm a huge fan of centers and utilize them frequently to provide differentiation to students with the skills and concepts we're learning. This also allows me to move through small groups and provide the scaffolding students need as well as observe their progress, make notes about their understanding, math talk, social interactions with peers, perseverance and productive struggle. I looked through the new math centers page for TSD and I think I'll try out Rectangle Rumble next week. This looks similar to one I've used before "Area Island" and "Perimeter Island". It's a great way to reinforce multiplication math facts and I love that this curriculum provides several leveled options. I can see there's going to be considerable prep time before next year to get these laminated or prepared for use. Overall, love the move toward incorporating centers more deliberately.
ReplyDeleteThis was great. I have small groups (2-4) and wasn’t sure how do have centers with such small groups. I am going to try the “estimate and measure” I’m currently teaching measurement in 2nd grade. The center I will try is the “base ten blocks connecting cubes” on Monday. I can't wait to try other centers for the other grades.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Can I just start with how amazing the center page is on the K-5 math site!! All the resources at your fingertips and the materials list is so clear with what needs to be copied ahead of time. Thanks you Renae! When I was in the classroom, centers and games were a big part of our daily math experience. Students LOVE to play games and often times don't even realize how much math, problem solving, cooperation, and social skills they are using when they play a favorite game. I haven't tried any of these new to me games in a classroom yet, but can definitely give a shout out to the games 'Capture the Squares' and 'Number Puzzles'. I have played games similar to capture the squares with students and this has been an all time favorite- both for addition and multiplication. Additionally, the number puzzles center reminded me of an open middle task and kiddos love that challenge.
ReplyDeleteLove this! I think my Resource students will really enjoy these math centers. Having the chance to use what they learn in a fun way will really help reinforce their skills and build confidence. I've printed a few and will start using these right away.
ReplyDeleteThese centers are a great resource! We definitely use a LOT of games and partner activities in MAP and I like how these centers are activities adaptable for multiple grade levels. Students are always asking for more games!
ReplyDeleteI think centers would be a great addition to our larger and pretty social 3rd grade math resource group. I can see having a few activities set up for our early finishers every day and also using them as stations maybe once a week to reinforce new topics and keep skills up on previous concepts. I think centers could be a really successful form of practice for our more reluctant math students. I haven't had the chance to try any of them out yet, but I hope to soon.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of incorporating centers into math time. I already do this in my current practice. In my current model, students make center choices to work on while I am running small groups after my core lesson. Current centers in my class range from fluency practice, partner games, tech time (Prodigy and Reflex), and a few others. The Illustrative Math Centers seem to feel somewhat like the partner games I am currently doing. I currently store partner games in two large rainbow carts with shelves that the students can pull from on their own. I have bins that coordinate with each month of the year and increase in difficulty as the year goes on. I’ll probably try and store my new centers in a similar system.
ReplyDeleteI taught the “Can You Draw It-Stage 2, Center 6” center to my class today and it went well! It only took a few minutes for me to model with a student helping me as a partner. The game was straight forward and had directions that were easy to follow. My kids liked that it seemed like a challenge was posed to them. I thought the center required little prep as well which was nice. I already had a parent volunteer cut out all the cards. One tip I did learn, was to go back and have a parent volunteer number the sets. I’m going to have her write on the back of the cards with sharpie. Some students had left cards behind cleaning up and now I’m not quite sure which back to put them back into.
After doing this center, I asked students what they thought of it. Here were some of their responses:
“The shapes were cool and some I had never seen before.”
“I like it because it was kind of like I Spy but you are trying to draw a shape.”
“It was good because I liked how you had to draw it while listening to what your partner was saying.”
“It was ok. It was just drawing and guessing.”
Overall, the response was mostly positive, and I’m excited to try more.
Thank you for sharing Rachael! I love the ideas for organization and reading the student comments.
DeleteMath Centers (or what I called games) were an integral part of my math block when I was in the classroom. The level of engagement and application was much higher than other activities and allowed students to further their understanding of all sorts of math concepts. While as a coach I do not get to experience them in the classroom on a weekly/daily basis, I love that they are a part of the curriculum and linked to the learning taking place. Thank you Renae for the website and the materials that allow exploration of all the centers and having one less step to implement! So far, I have had the opportunity to engage in a couple of centers as a participant and see some in the classroom when I go in during math time. Some of the names escape me, but I did see Build Shapes in Kindergarten and Compare in 2nd Grade. The level of positive energy in the classroom was heightened with lots of smiles and laughter as students talked about math. In Kindergarten it was part of a math stations structure and in 2nd grade it was the day students were being introduced to it. I can't wait to see more centers in action!
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