Organize Your Centers!
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It’s been a while since I wrote an “Organize Your…” post! I realized during center time yesterday that I never blogged about how I keep my centers organized, so now sounds good to me 🙂
I split my class up into five groups: Giraffes, Elephants, Zebras, Lions, and Tigers. They are grouped according to skill level. The Tigers are my resource kiddos, and they work on the Wilson’s program with the resource teacher during center time. Here’s a picture of my work board:
We have four centers that we complete weekly: writing, word work {this week it’s Rainbow Write}, math, and buddy reading. We complete those centers M-Th. For each of the centers, I pull activities from either Treasures {our reading series}, or from the fun packs my bloggy friends make 🙂 In February, I’ll start pulling centers from my oh so sweet pack! On Friday, my centers are Teacher’s Choice. I like to do holiday/themed centers on Fridays to shake things up a bit 🙂
I assign each group a center captain, who is responsible for gathering the materials for center work. I keep the supplies in baskets {which are kept in cubbies}. I have a bunch of baskets ready to go so I can switch them out from week to week, as necessary. Here’s a pic of one of the baskets:
There is a clothespin on the front of the basket holding a pic of the giraffe… so the Giraffes know that this is their basket for the day. I rotate the pictures daily. Inside this basket are all the supplies for this particular center:
*pencil bucket
*dice in little containers {to prevent them from flying everywhere}
*crayons in a slider case
*Rainbow Roll-n-Write directions
*folder with recording sheet & word lists:
My kiddos are pretty much pros at center time. It took them a few months and a lot of practice, but now they know exactly where to go, what baskets to grab, and where to put them back. I love a good routine!
How do you organize your centers?
