4 Helpful Tips for Math Center Management
Do you love the idea of students working all around the room on differentiated hands on math activities or does it stress you out that so much is going on? I have math center management tips that will help make sure that you LOVE your time facilitating math stations!
1. Behavior
Volume Control
Even after we discuss and practice the appropriate volume level during math centers, of course sometimes the students can get too loud. I use a call and response to help remind them and correct the situation. I say “waterfall” and they respond “shhhh” while miming the waterfall trickling down with their fingers.
Necklace Helpers
I give two students a necklace to identify them as that day’s helpers. If students have any questions during math centers they need to ask one of the helpers before they can interrupt my small group. This really helps to promote leadership in the classroom and minimize distractions for my teacher group!
Class Dojo
I use class dojo in my classroom so I give students points as they are working to reinforce appropriate behavior. This is a strong math center management tool because students are being recognized without me having to stop and take away from my guided math teacher station!
2. Material Placement
I love using hands on manipulatives in my math centers but hate when they are all over the floor afterwards. So I try to keep the materials really organized and only give the students what they need! My biggest math center management tip is that you do this as well!
In the Math with a Friend station, the materials needed for each math game are in a plastic tub with the activity itself. I give the students everything they need so that they do not need to go around the room looking for counters or dice.
At my Math with the Teacher station, I keep all of the materials in containers within hands reach. This way I can pull out anything that I need easily!
3.Teaching Routines
I use a Responsive Classroom strategy called Interactive Modeling. With this, I explicitly teach the expectations and routines for each of my math centers. This is a very proactive approach to make your math center management practically run itself!
We also practice transitions between stations several times. I give students a 2 minute warning to clean up their materials before we switch.
Although we do the same stations and in the same order everyday, I still keep the rotation for each group posted on my bulletin board. I do this so that students can reference it and be sure of what they should be doing.
4. Problem Solving Circles
I believe that problem solving circles is my most critical element to math center management. This is also a Responsive Classroom technique. If I feel like math centers are not working how they should, and simple redirection of a few students would not correct it then we halt the class and go to the rug! We sit in a circle and I state that I feel like there is something making our math center not function successfully.
Students then take turns going around the circle reflecting and sharing if they feel they are part of the problem or solution. We do not even say explicitly what the problem is, students just think if their behavior met our class expectations or not. This put our math center management in their hands as well as mine. Then students share general ways we can fix what is happening to get back on track. I use this strategy for any subject but I find it works really well with math centers.
Read more about my math centers!
