I may earn money from companies mentioned in this post at no cost to you. Thank you!
This post has been co-written with Ben Wolfson, a full-time educator and assistant principal in the USA.
The workshop model of instruction is quickly becoming widespread across the nation as the best way to teach young students. This is a structured approach to math in which a teacher will provide a short mini lesson, then break the students into a variety of kindergarten math centers before reconvening the class to review their progress towards the stated learning goals. It’s essential, therefore, that your math center rotation game is on point so that students are given multiple opportunities to practice and master each math skill.
How To Set Up A Math Center For Success
Long gone are the days of a kindergarten math center as busy work while they wait to work with the teacher. It’s essential to know how to create differentiated kindergarten centers that allow students to work independently and still get success. Try some of the tips below for managing kindergarten math stations to build skills and independence.
Managing Kindergarten Math Stations
1. Partner up – any kindergarten math center can be taken to the next level by having students work with a partner. Not only can you introduce some heterogeneous math teaching, but the students will hold each other accountable to get the math worksheet or activity completed in the time allotted. Use these Food Friends Partner Cards to make picking a partner a peaceful classroom activity!
2. Self check clip cards – if you’re looking for activities where the students don’t have to come and pester an adult to check their work, then clip card activities should be your go to option in your math center rotation. Each of the clip cards will have a problem with multiple possible solutions shown. Commonly, there are 3 or 4 options shown, but there can be more depending on the skill to master. Simply mark the correct answer on the back of the card with a sticker or permanent marker and students can self-check their work. This type of math center can be used to learn a wide variety of early math skills. Check out some examples below:
Scarecrow Count and Compare
Fish Ten Frames
Ocean Addition to 10
Counting Pizza Toppings
Space Subtraction Within 10
Truck Wheel Shape Matching
Counting 1 to 20 Ladybugs
Easter Bunny Simple Sums to 10
Valentines Tally Marks Cards
3. Write the Room – not every math center has to be done sitting quietly. A write the room scavenger hunt is a great way of managing kindergarten math stations as students will get their movement breaks as well as completing more work than they would do on a simple worksheet.
4. Color by numbers – color by number worksheets are another great tool when you’re learning how to set up a math center. They can be simple number matching activities (color all the 5s in green) or comparison or equation work (color everything one less than 3 in blue). As a bonus, they are self checking as students will recognize when they haven’t used the right color for a particular shape and will correct their work on their own! Here are a few you can download for free:
Spring Color by Number Pack
Freddy Frog Color by Number
St Patrick’s Day Color by Number
5. Endless playability games – finally, if you’re looking for differentiated kindergarten centers, then you need to be finding games with endless playing variations. These include ones that lend themselves to games such as War, Snap and Memory so often require a deck of math facts or equations that the students have already completed.
