Centers

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Centers
By dh

Hi Mandy,

Before getting my degree, I worked in the classroom for 8 years as an assistant. We did centers this way

1. The teacher would do some whole group instruction ex. penmanship, math, explanation of new materials.
etc..
2. We had the children sit at tables 5 children to a table. There were 4 0r 5 tables in the room referred to as stations or centers. There was math, writing, discovery, computer.
3. Lets say you have 2 hours to devote to centers. You could have 30 minutes for each center. Use a timer. When the timer rings, have the children stand and rotate to the next center clockwise.
4.

If you only have one hour for centers, you could have the students do two 30 minute centers on Monday, then on Tuesday do the other two centers. Then do new center material for Wed and Thurs.

5. You will have to see what works best for you.

6. Usually, I would take a center and the teacher would take a center. Or we would "float" where ever we were needed. Sometimes, we would do a cooking center in discovery. This would need an adult during all the center rotations.

7. Usually our centers consisted of reinforcement or things that went along with our thematic unit. We did LOTS of GREAT hands on things. We also put things like file folder games that helped with reinforcement or science experiments. Don't forget you can use listening (tapes of reading to go along with the story) too as a center.

8. I hope this is a little help to clarify center activity. Good luck If I can help further, I would be glad to explain more.

9. Centers worked great for our room. When I get my classroom this fall (hopefully), I will use centers.

10 Oh yeah, we had a chairperson of each center that helped to clean up before center rotations and reminded the students to use their "center voices"