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.
As an early implementor, I have played a lot of these games in my classroom! Some of our favorites include, Five in a Row, Capture Squares, and How Close. I choose to organize my centers in a tower of bins from IKEA. This seems to be working out very nicely for me! In each bin, I have materials for 5 partnerships to play the game. I put each bin in different corners of the room and students go to the area that has the game they wish to play. When they are done playing, they put their materials away and move to a different game. If they see the bin is empty, then they know they all the materials are being used and they need to pick a different game. Some games are definitely more popular than others, but overall my students do seem to be enjoying the new IM centers!
ReplyDeleteI am reading that centers can be used as an additional resource for grades 3-5. I like this idea for early finishers, or carving out a time in our day to participate in the center and gain extra practice. I'm thinking I will organize my supplies/games in drawers or bins. These will be ready to go with all supplies in the bin for students to grab and play quickly. I'm already thinking I'm going to need some parent volunteers to help me organize all of the new math supplies. From talking to other early implementers, it sounds like this is the most challenging part of the first year. Once everything is ready to go, it will mostly be ready for next year. I like how they are organized on the math site by grade level. I might even use some of the lower grades to support students at that level.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that your bins of math centers will arrive before the end of January 🤞🏼. There isn't an expectation that you dive right in, but I was hopeful that getting them early would allow you time this year to utilize your parent helpers to organize and get them ready.
DeleteI love math centers/games and so do my students! Before winter break I taught my class 'Five in a Row' they were thinking it was another version of '4 in a row' and didn't realize they could apply more strategy, they LOVED it! Currently, math games are an option for morning work, early finishers and WIN we also will have game day Friday at times. I anticipate keeping these routines or tweeking them with the new curriculum. I have plastic envelope/folders for my current games as well as small plastic cases that can hold smaller supplies. Students have their own game pieces and dice in their math kit that they keep in their desk (something I carried over from the Zoom/Hybrid days). I want to thank you Renae for setting us up for success with the centers already printed and organized, you're amazing!!
ReplyDelete❤ thank you for always being an encourager, Angie. Grateful for you!
DeleteAs someone who thrives through learning by activity with a class of energetic and restless students, some version of centers/games/manipulatives are a regular practice in our hi-cap fifth-grade classroom. Having recently finished a complex geometry unit demanding high levels of spatial awareness and comfortability in manipulating shapes, we were "moving and making" every day in order to develop strong conceptual understanding around how prisms and pyramids are composed and how each face's area contributes to total surface area. We rotated through a number of stations throughout the unit wherein students solved mazes, measured prisms and pyramids they could hold in their hands, used target numbers to construct nets (like an advanced kindergarten "tower-build"), and built various props from foam blocks to reenact story problems. For physical station and game pieces, I often draw from our soft-start and other manipulative bins that students use throughout the day as they are familiar with these materials and enjoy adapting their use to fit different demands and content areas. In fact, I had a student (unprompted) pull out a bag of hundredths pieces to reconstruct the net of a prism as he worked to correct a missed test question. Depending on what route our hi-cap grade level takes with the adoption of new curriculum, our centers may be different than IM. However, I am excited to find a means to incorporate and adapt the stations provided on the "Center Page" to fit my student population and give the games you all have recommended here a go!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love math centers and they have always been a part of my classroom! The shift for me with teaching illustrative was incorporating math centers into every day, where in the past I would teach math lessons Monday-Wednesday and then do two center days at the end of each week. The increase in prep work each day did take some time to adjust to, but once you and your students get to know the centers it actually is a really smooth transition and they really enjoy have the time each day!
ReplyDeleteI have taught most of these math centers but I just introduced my kids to one of my favorites, match mine. Students work in pairs and one student creates a design using pattern blocks and then verbally gives their partner directions on how to make the same design. Once the second partner is finished "matching" their design we make a big deal to count to three and reveal the two designs to see if they match! My kids absolutely love this center! Even before I was done demonstrating I could hear them saying "this looks like so much fun" "I want to do that center" It's been a big hit so far!
The math centers are amazing. I love how they build upon each other and that there are so many different variations of the centers to accommodate different skill levels, what a great way to differentiate. I have not had the opportunity to teach a new center when I was teaching the IM lessons at each grade level. However, I have had the opportunity to see students engaged in the centers. I saw kindergarten students go to a drawer of centers that they were familiar with and choose a center for them. They were independent in making their choice, gathering supplies and "playing" the center. It was so fun to talk with them about why they chose the particular center that they did, many of them told me because it is fun. A couple students told me they chose it because they needed more practice!
ReplyDeleteI have wondered how it would work to have students come in and start their day with centers. It seems like a great way to have all of the students engaged in learning as soon as they get to school and get their things put away.
I am excited about the opportunity to incorporate more centers into my math time. Centers and math games always increase student engagement and I love the student energy surrounding centers. I tried playing capture the squares with my students and they really enjoyed it. A positive to this specific center is that it can be added on to. Students have the opportunity to play throughout the whole year using the same game concept but new learning like subtraction, addition, etc. Thinking about organizing I want to make sure all my math centers are easily accessible to students so that we can maximize center time and not waste minutes gathering supplies. Hoping to learn more from the early implementer on our team!
ReplyDeleteI have always liked the idea of incorporating centers or games into my math block and at one point purchased math stations for my kids to rotate through during the math block. I have since changed grade level and have stopped incorporating that in my lessons, but am excited to see how, with the new curriculum, I might be able to start this again. One of the things that I will need to do is find games or centers that include sixth grade content or more challenging games. We tried out "5 in a row" multiplication, and I found it way to easy for my kiddos. They lost interest real fast. One thing that came to mind while they were playing, was what about raising the rigor by having them design a 5 in a row game that would be more challenging. I love this idea! They were already talking about it and I think this could be very beneficial for them. Another thought that I had, would be to set up different games on friday mornings as a way for them to review fifth grade skills for SBAC. I am looking forward to finding other ways to incorporate these activities in my class.
ReplyDeleteLove the idea of having them create a more rigorous version of the game! So smart!
DeleteI do math centers/math game and my students love it. It is a fun and stress free way for students to learn and straighten math concept. 'Go Fish to Ten', 'Bingo', '5 in row', 'Secret number' etc. I used them at the end of group time, sometimes at the beginning to turn them into 'the math mood' or as an extra time-reward which group earned over certain time (usually 1-2 weeks).
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