[oldnewbie]

I'm getting very confused. I plan to do centers next fall, so I've been putting my students through trials for centers this past 9 weeks. One day (Tues) I do math, and have 4 centers going. One is with me, and the other 3 are doing other things (hot dots, board games, etc).

Now here's my question...how long does each child stay in a center? Or is there an allotted time? I see this as the center group switching every 20 minutes, yet if they are involved in a game/paper activity, I don't want them to stop mid way (or do I?)

Help!

Thx.

[angelajw]

The first question I ask myself is what am I going to be doing with a group and what do I want the other kids to get out of centers. Then I set up centers around those guidelines. I have one hour of literacy centers everyday. We have 3 rotations of 20 min a day. There are 6 centers so it takes 2 days to do all of the centers. On Friday I pull out 6 centers that they will NOT get to all of them - they are review, games, favorites... It sounds like alot but honestly I am only changing 3 center tubs twice a week. The others stay the same (computers, listening, and reading). The three that change are word work, writing, and spelling.

Math centers are run completely different. Most of my math centers are set up for two people. We do math centers twice a week and they self select a center from the bucket.

20 min is plenty of time to finish. Let them know they have 20 min so they will get right to work. Sometimes I put extra activities with the ones that I know they will finish too quickly.

[buggybear]

I normally allot 20 minutes for each center especially if you are doing things like hot dots, board games etc. I teach third and my students tend to get restless and start to get off task if it is any longer than that.

The students also have center folders. If you are doing an activity that might take longer than 20 minutes, they can put it in their center folder and work on it when they have extra time. I normally allow students time on Fridays to finish center work before turning it in.

[2ndGradeMama]

Have you read Debbie Miller's Literacy Workstations after doing centers for 7 years, this book changed my thinking and made my life easier. I was able to change "centers" less and found that the students were behaving better because they knew what to do and had a choice in their learning.

My students go to two workstations each day and spend about 20-25 min per station.