Making Decisions with Centers...

You've taught some basic centers, but what now?  How do you decide how things are going?

After I have things rolling for a couple of weeks, I lay out my center cards like this:  

I take a look to see that centers are "even" meaning that the activities are heavier/more work from one day to the next.  If you notice that on Monday, kids are finishing activities quickly but Tuesday, kids are having to stay in at recess to complete work; they might need switched around.  For 1st grade I have four-15 minute centers with a 2 minute break in-between (I use GoNoodle for brain breaks).  I like to have all days at this time of year to have 2 paper centers- where the kids turn something in for me to review, and 2 activity centers- where they are practicing a skill but not having to turn anything in.  If you are teaching a higher grade you might want to make each day 3-20 minute centers so that the students have more time to complete tasks.  

Here are my centers by day:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

I can say that things are "just right" if my kids are mostly going outside (maybe a couple stragglers because they were avoiding tasks) and the work is primarily completed well (meaning about 85-90% of the kids are "getting it" and only a small portion of the class needs to have reteaching).  

As the year goes on I continue to make adjustments, so look for coming blogposts that continue to address center-based learning :)

Sincerely,