- Centers are great for differentiation, collaborative work, review, and enrichment of material
that has already been taught. However, all of this is only possible if you have all of your ducks in a row. Setting up your centers in a way that is easy for students to
follow and you to maintain is going to be vital for center success. In today's video I'm gonna
share some tips and strategies for setting up your
centers in your classroom That is gonna make sure you get the most out of this precious
time with your students. (bright upbeat music) Welcome back Educational Rockstars. I'm Farrah from Farrah Henley Education where I strive to bring you
actionable tips, strategies and simple systems that actually work so that you can finally teach and have big impact in your classroom. If this is your first time joining, we would like to invite you to please click that subscribe button and make sure you hit
that notification bell so that you get notified when we go live or upload a new video here on the channel. Centers are a great way to
differentiate your instruction. They're a great way to test prep. They're a great way to make sure that you're reviewing
and getting enrichment and for skills that have
already been taught. While centers might be
good for differentiation, for review and enrichment. If you don't have all your ducks in a row they can be chaos. And so I wanna share
these five tips for you so that you can make
sure that your centers are getting you the biggest
impact that you possibly can and that they are gonna
work for your students, and they are gonna be
easy for you to maintain and keep up with. So the first tip I wanna share with you is plan out your centers. Now this may seem so simple. Of course you have to
plan out your centers, but you would be surprised
at how many teachers I coach that don't actually plan their centers. They just find activities
to put into their centers. They don't really take a
moment to really step back and actually plan their centers out. And so this is really crucial when you're setting up your centers. You're gonna wanna make sure that you plan the exact activities that
are gonna be in each center. If you're differentiating your
instruction in your centers you're gonna wanna plan
out that differentiation. You're gonna wanna make sure that you plan for everything that your
students are going to need. And we're gonna talk a
little bit about that in some other tips that I'm
gonna share with you as well. But make sure that you're
planning those centers. Set time aside to look
at your lesson plans from the previous weeks and think about what you
can put into your centers. Now, like I always tell you, you need to make sure your centers are being used for review and enrichment. We're not putting anything that's on the lesson plan
that week inside your centers. You're gonna wanna go back a few weeks and pick up review material from those weeks that
you've already taught. And that's what you need to
be putting in your centers. To help you with this, I have a great resource that
I'm going to leave a link in the description for you to
grab my free centers planner. And you're gonna be able to grab that link and down in the description. And you can go download that, and it is going to have
a step-by-step plan for you to be able to
plan out your centers, plan out your groups, everything when you're
planning your centers. And the great thing is if it's in digital and a printable format, so you can actually edit
it right on your computer and fill all of that out
or you can print it out, you can bind it, you can
print it out each week and put it into your lesson planner so that you have that
right there to go for you. So the second thing that I think
you really need to focus on when you're setting up your centers is to make sure that you
have a simple framework. So what does this mean? You're gonna wanna have
a system for the way your students are gonna
rotate through centers. You're gonna wanna have a system for where your students get supplies. You're gonna wanna make sure that you hit those big
three, that consistency, that clarity and that functionality. You're gonna wanna make sure that all three of those are hit. Make sure you've got
clarity within your centers. That they're predictable activities. Your kids are going to know how to do, and they're not gonna require you every time they do the activity to teach them a new way to do it. Make sure you've got the functionality. And you've got things set up to where they rotate in a certain order. It's a simple system to follow. Don't get complicated with this. I see so many center rotation systems that are so complicated
and they change every day. The kids don't know where
they're supposed to be, where they're supposed to
be working or anything. So make sure you've
got that functionality. And then consistency. When you have a simple framework it is going to be easier for
you to maintain consistency. And really consistency is what
is gonna make your centers start to flow like a well oiled machine. How many centers are you using? Do you have that already set up? Is that changing from day to day? Because really you don't
want that changing. You want a set number of centers. Are you the teacher going
to be one of those centers? Are they going to rotate through you? Having a simple framework in place is going to save your sanity. And it's gonna give your students that clarity that they're gonna need so that they make sure
that they are running, that your centers are running
smoothly every single day because the students are, it's gonna become muscle memory. And they're gonna know exactly
where they're supposed to be and what they're supposed to be doing. So my third tip for making sure that you're setting your
centers up successfully is to make sure you have an
unbreakable expectations. Now I cannot stress this enough. Your students will rise
to the level that you set. If you set that expectation down here, that's as far as they're gonna go. If you set that expectation up here, now it might take you a little while to get them up to your expectation, but they will rise to the occasion. So once you have
expectations for your centers set and in place, make
sure you stick to it. Do not waiver. You are gonna wanna make sure that you're setting those expectations. You're not breaking them. If you don't want them interrupting you at your center table, then you
need to set that expectation and you need to stick to it. Have some simple things in place to make sure that common
interruptions are taken care of. This is something that I go over in my "Program Learning
Centers Made Easy". And I give you that step-by-step process of how I run my centers in my classroom. And I tell you exactly the
systems that I put in place to make sure that my students have those simple interruptions and those common
interruptions taken care of. So that is something that
you might wanna check out, and I will leave a link in the description for you to go check out
and join the waiting list. So when that program
opens again for next year you can get on there and you can get your
centers right on track from the very very beginning. Four tip, organize your materials. Now, I talked about this last week. We went through how I organize
my math and literacy centers but I cannot stress this enough. You have to make sure your
math and literacy centers are organized or you're
not gonna keep up with it. I mean, think about it. If you're not organized, what happens? Chaos ensues. You're not keeping up with it. You decide that it's too much work. You're not sure what centers you're gonna put into your activities. And this goes back to planning
because when you start to plan your centers,
if you're not organized, then planning your centers
is gonna be a nightmare. Planning your centers really
shouldn't take that much time, but it's not gonna, it's
gonna be very very difficult if you don't already have them organized. So you're gonna need
things like the Iris boxes and the Ziploc bags and make sure you're
laminating everything. Make sure you have it all
organized and ready to go when you sit down and plan your centers so that it is so simple
and easy to make sure you have everything running right. This is going to go a long way when you're setting up
those centers for success. That fifth tip is to make sure
you're grouping your students in groups that are going to work. Now, there are two ways that
you can group your students. You can group them homogeneously or you can group them heterogeneously. And I have done a video and I will link to that video
down in the description below. But I have done a video on
how I group my students, and the two different ways you can group. I personally prefer to group
my students homogeneously so that they are on the same level or working on the same skills
or about the same skills. The reason I do this is
it makes it really simple when I'm running my small groups and my students are rotating
through my teacher table. I myself am one of the center stations and they rotate through
me and I can put them in their reading groups
or their math groups. And they very easily rotate through me. So that's why I prefer
to group homogeneously. Some teachers prefer to
group heterogeneously, to where they might have students that are a little bit higher working with students that
are on a little bit lower or behind a little bit
on some of the skills, because then those higher students can help those lower students. But I find it's easier if my students stick with
their reading or math groups and then they just rotate through me. That's something that I've been doing forever and ever, and ever. And that's just my
preferred way of doing it. But you can check out that video. Again, I'm gonna leave a description or leave a link to that
video in the description, so you can check out that video. Now, if you're looking for more strategies and simple systems that actually work to take back into your classroom, check out the videos on your screen. Thanks for watching and keep
being an educational rockstar.
