I've always prided myself on classroom management, but as my class size increases, so does the difficulty in keeping students focused and on task. Math centers (or centers of any kind) are no exception.
I find that we start strong at the beginning of the school year. However,
Ready. Set. Go!
Tomorrow is open house for me, which means it has been crunch time in getting my classroom ready to go. It shouldn't have been that difficult, because I decided to keep the same look from last year. I still really liked the bright colors, and to be quite honest, I didn't feel
Teaching Math Workshop Procedures
For your math workshop or guided math class to run smoothly, it is essential to explicitly teach your students the procedures you will use within your math instruction. However, before you begin teaching content area procedures, I recommend teaching general classroom procedures
Planning For Teaching: Where to Begin
One of the questions I'm most frequently asked is how to plan for the school year. That's a big question without a quick or easy answer. It depends on the situation you're in at the moment. If you're a new teacher or new to a school, check out the notes below. If that's not your
Organizing Math Manipulatives
I've always tried to use my time with my students as efficiently as possible. Any random moment of down time is usually when I see student misbehavior, and I feel like I'm losing out on valuable instruction time. I'm always looking for ways to streamline procedures to keep my day
Math Work Stations
Several years ago, I would have considered myself to be an anti-centers teacher. I liked the idea of them, but I could not make them work in my classroom. I tried really hard my first couple of years teaching, but they added so much work for me, and I wasn't confident that my
Implementing and Organizing RTI
In my school, classroom teachers are responsible for RTI interventions and progress monitoring for their Tier 2 students, and we have a couple different programs that we use for reading. However, for math we pretty much have to come up with our own resources. I've found resources
Teaching After Testing
By the time we finish testing, I've taught all, or most, of the standards, so I have a little more flexibility than normal. I certainly don't want student learning to stop, but it keeping our momentum can be a challenge.
As the school year winds down, it's beneficial to both
How to Organize Your Math Centers
Centers can be a great addition to the classroom, but it's not always easy to organize your center activities. And then once they're organized, it can be a challenge to KEEP them that way Fortunately, there are several organizational tricks and strategies that will make
Planning for January
It's always hard to believe that the end of December marks the halfway point of the school year. Looking back at all students have learned and accomplished over a few months is astonishing. It's sometimes hard to see the gains students have made day-to-day, so it's nice to stop
