Looking for some organization tips for math centers in your kindergarten, first grade, or second grade classroom? Math centers are an important time of day in the primary grades, but planning math centers can be time consuming! Having a system in place for planning and prepping math centers makes all the difference!
Each week, I used to DREAD planning math centers. I always put it off until Friday after school and spent SO long putting away current math centers, searching through my math bins for new activities that went with the skill we were learning, then prepping our new math tubs. I also spent a ton of time over weekends creating new math centers for the following week if I didn’t like what I already had!
That’s when I developed my system for planning and prepping my math centers! It helped me to be more efficient and spend less time working after school and on the weekends!
Today I wanted to share my system to make planning and prepping math centers every week manageable!
Why Use Math Centers?
Here are some reasons you should be doing math centers in your classroom:
💗 They give you time to meet with small groups! While my students are working at a math tub with their math partner, I am meeting with small groups. This time is essential for student growth! (Read more about our small groups here!)
💗 They give students time to spiral review skills. We know our little ones can’t learn a skill once and be good to go. They need to go back and review constantly! I love that math centers give the opportunity to keep previously taught math skills fresh in their brains!
💗 They are FUN! When I ask my students their favorite part of the day, I always have about 90% say math centers! Students LOVE practicing their skills with games and hands-on activities!
How I Run Math Centers
Math Centers are an essential part of my Guided Math Block! Each day, one of the rotations my students visit is a math tub. Math tubs contain our hands-on math centers, games, and activities!
In my classroom, I change my math tubs weekly. Students work with a math partner and complete 1 tub each day that we do our math rotations (Monday-Thursday). Which means I prep 4 math tubs each week! You can read more about how I run my Guided Math Rotations here!
Find my Digital Center Rotation Slides here!
What math centers should I choose?
I have a few rules when it comes to math centers!
I only use activities that:
- Students can complete independently:
All of my math center activities are review skills for students! Students should be able to complete the center independently so that I can focus on teaching my small group.
- Are EASY for me to plan and prep
I don’t like using center activities that have a ton of pieces that I have to laminate and cut out! I try choosing activities that can be used over and over again!
Here is my easy system for planning and prepping math centers!
Time-Saving Tip: Plan your math centers a month at a time: I use my math center planning sheet (FREEBIE!) to plan out my math centers at the beginning of the month. This makes it SO much easier to prep each week! I always do this first thing in the morning when my brain is fresh and I have a cup of coffee in my hand!
By planning a whole month of centers at once, the center choices are intentional and I am not just pulling out random activities each week. If there are certain skills I really want students to be reviewing that month, I am able to plug them in as needed.
I also will jot down on a post-it, any recording sheets or copies that need to be made. If I have any center activities that aren’t made yet, I make a note of that as well!
I usually don’t do any prepping at this stage- just planning! But if I have some extra time and I’m feeling extra motivated, sometimes I’ll gather the activities in a bin to make weekly prep even easier!
Here’s how I make my math center plans:
Step 1:
I always start with our Math Center Routines that we do weekly. Math center routines are centers where the activity stays the same, but I can change out the math skill.
Math Center Routines have been a game changer in my classroom. It takes way less time to plan when I know we are going to be doing these activities every week. Plus, students are able to be independent because they already know how to complete the center. I don’t have to spend a ton of time explaining centers to students every week!
Here are the 2 math center routines we do every week!
- Solve the Room – Each week I tape a new set of math task cards around the classroom. When students visit this center, they grab a clipboard and a recording sheet and walk around the classroom solving the math problems. After they finish, they visit the Grading Station and check their work!
The kids get so excited to find out what our new set of task cards is going to be each week! To save time, I created a class job where I have 2 kids that are responsible for taking the old task cards down and taping up the new set of task cards for the following week!
If you want to make Solve the Room part of your math centers routines, you can grab the bundle here for task cards to use every single week!
Find Kindergarten Solve the Room here!
Find First Grade Solve the Room here!
Find Second Grade Solve the Room here!
- Fact Fluency Center (FREEBIE!)
One of our FAVORITE math center routines in first grade is our Fact Fluency center!
I introduce this after our beginning addition strategies unit and students visit this math tub with their math partner each week!
In the math tub I put:
⭐️Addition Flash Cards
⭐️Laminated Fact Races
⭐️Dry Erase Markers
⭐️1 minute Sand Timers
Students can quiz their partners on the flashcards (TIP: write the answers on the back before laminating to make them self-checking!) and they can use the sand timers to see how many facts they can complete on the fact races!
I’m not going to lie- making this center is a lot of prep. BUT it is so worth it because we use it literally ALL year long!
You can find the Addition Fact Fluency Center for FREE here!
You can find Subtraction Fact Fluency here!
Step 2:
Next, for each week, I add an activity that we have already done together at the teacher table during small group time. It’s super helpful that students have seen the activity before, and I already have the materials prepped and ready to go!
For these activities I use a lot of Math Mats. To use, just slip them into dry erase pockets! Add math manipulatives for hands-on practice.
You can read more about our Guided Math Small Groups here!
Grab these Place Value Math mats here!
Try Addition Math Mats for free!
Step 3:
Our last center each week is miscellaneous! Here are some of my go-to choices:
- A fun, seasonal or holiday themed game or activity:
I love seasonal games and I didn’t want to give them up completely. Having one brand new game or activity to explain each week is much more do-able than 4! I like using the seasonal math mats included in these No Prep Math sets!
- Other Math Center Routines:
I also use 2 of our other favorite math center routines! We don’t do them every single week, but the kids LOVE them so I use them often!
They are:
Solve and Cover – This is a self-checking game that reviews over 40 first grade math skills!
Just choose the math mat you want to use and the task cards with the skill you want students to work on!
Math Match – My first graders love playing Memory Match during center time! We play it with so many different math skills! Students play just like memory. They arrange the cards in rows and take turns looking for matches!
Another idea for a SUPER easy math center is to save some extra copies of math worksheets that students have already completed. Slip them into dry erase pockets and add some manipulatives to make them hands-on! It is great extra practice and students are able to be independent because they have already completed the activity!
It feels new to students and they are engaged because it is presented in a new way!
Finally, you can’t go wrong with Color by Code. These are great for Addition and Subtraction practice and the kids LOVE completing them! This set includes 3 levels for each picture for easy differentiation.
Now time to prep math centers!
On Friday mornings I prep my math tubs for the following week! I look at my planning sheet and quickly pull what I need! If I have any copies to make, I do that as well! I love using dry erase pockets to save time. Other materials I use often are dry erase markers, felt erasers, dice, and manipulatives. For centers that use counters, I like using the seasonal erasers from the Target dollar spot for extra engagement!
Quick Review!
- Plan Centers a Month at a Time
- Start with the Math Center Routines that students will visit every week
- Add an activity that students have already done previously during small group time
- Last, choose 1 more review activity! It could be a fun, seasonal center or another math center routine
- Prep tubs for the following week each Friday!
💗 Want a FREE Guided Math planning binder and math center planning sheet? You can find it here! 💗
Questions about planning math centers? Leave them in the comments!
This was such a great blog that has inspired many ideas for ways I can effectively implement centers in my first grade classroom. I can’t wait to try some of them out! Your tips for planning and prepping have greatly helped me organize my ideas and will make my centers run much more smoothly for my students. Thank you for sharing!
So do student groups do 1 math tub per day? Like everyone does Math tub 1 on Monday, tub 2 on Tuesday, etc?
Or do the groups take turns so that they have all done all 4 tubs by end of the day Thursday?
Yes students do 1 tub each day and take turns with the tubs! They work with a partner and rotate through the tubs so that they do them all by the end of the week. So on Monday, Partner A and B are working at Tub 1, Partner C and D are working at Tub 2, etc. I show students which tub they should work at that day by putting the Tub number next to their names on my Rotation Slide 💗
Great, thanks for the clarification! But I noticed you have 4 tubs but only 3 groups? How do you get tub 4 into the rotations?
It just depends on how many kids are in a group! Math Tubs is just one of our 3 rotations. So if Group 1 has 8 students in it, I have 2 students working at each of the tubs when they visit that rotation. I have a little number next to their names on our rotation slide to tell them which tub to work at that day. If there are only 6 students in a group, then tubs 1, 2, and 3 might only be used on Monday, but on Tuesday Tubs 2, 3, and 4 will be used and so on. They still will work on 1 tub each day for 4 days so they’ll get to all 4 of them by the end of the week!