Center Management: How To Make A Center Wheel!

hey everybody its mr. Greg here from the kindergarten smorgasbord and today I wanted to come on and talk about something that I struggled with for years in my classroom and that was centers and how to manage centers and how to get the kids where they needed to be and how to get them how to get the centers to flow and to work for me and to work for the kids in a very simple but effective way and so today I'm going to show you something that I learned about when I taught second grade and I used in my second-grade classroom for a couple of years and then when I moved to kindergarten I brought the idea with me and it has worked so well in kindergarten I've used it now for eight years in my kindergarten classroom and it just makes center management so much easier and simple for me and the kids so it's very teacher friendly and it's very kid friendly and that's important because we want center time to be something that our kids can do very independently so that we're free to do our guided reading groups our small groups work one-on-one help out in centers but it needs to be something where Center management needs to give us teacher freedom so that we can do the things that we need to do so the solution that I use in my classroom is a center wheel it's a color-coded system it's a very visual system which is perfect for kindergarteners and so it's very easy for them to understand and use and it makes it very easy for me so today I'm going to show you how to create a center wheel for your classroom so you're going to need some poster board just regular white poster board you're gonna need some colored paper and the colored paper needs to be you need to have the same number of colors that you have as groups so I have four groups for my literacy centers so I have four different color of paper um you're gonna need some a pencil and marker scissors and glue and you're also going to need either clipart to show what centers to go to or even better than clipart is take photographs of the actual centers in your classroom and use those for your center wheel because that gives the kids a a complete completely accurate visual of what center or workstation or as we call them hippopotamus they're going to so I just snapped some pictures of our tub I did our math centers also because I'm going to redo our math center wheel so I just have some very simple crude photographs nothing fancy right there room baskets that are hanging on our wall I read to sell for classroom library and computers for technology so those are your supplies so to make the center wheel you're actually going to make two circles a big one and a smaller one and so you might have seen this if you watch the submissions for s'more you live I was struggling with our circle maps for a BC boot camp and my friend asked and actually told me about this solution to draw perfect circles it's a paint stick and the mister just drew some holes and the paint sticks are in the paint stick and those you used to make your circles so you you put your anchor here so a pencil or a pin to hold the paint stick and then all these circles are your holes are your different size circles so we're gonna start with our big circle and so I'm actually gonna do it what's a sharpie you can do it with a pencil and then go back over it but I'm gonna do with a sharpie so it'll be um easy to see so like I said I'm like the big circle and again this doesn't have to be perfect because we're gonna cut it out so you put your pencil at the end of the paint stick the Sharpie goes in the hole for your circle and I'm going with the biggest circle and I'm sure if he doesn't want to work sweet your perfect circle so there's our circle so you have one big circle and then you're on your second piece of poster board you're gonna draw and make a smaller circle we'll do the same thing put my anchor thing in got my circle so now I'm going to cut them out if you have more than four groups if you have five groups or six groups just remember that you're gonna want enough different colors of paper so you have enough for all of your groups so if you have five groups you're going to want five to get my color six groups you want six different color when I made my original center wheel then I actually took the trash can in our classroom we have these really really nice big grey metal trash cans and I actually flip that over and use that to make one of my circles so anything you can find that will make the right size circles is great but the paint stick with the holes in it has been an amazing tool for making perfect circles of all sizes all right so now I've got my two circles so they're gonna look something like this when they're done all right now get rid of this big one and I'm also I'm kind of trying to monitor Facebook to see if I can see any questions and the mister is also helping out so if you have questions be sure to ask so we can address those so here is the little circle this is going to be the part of the center wheel that's color-coded to show the kids what center or work station they go to and so since I have four groups I need to divide it into four sections so the easiest way for me to do that is I'm just gonna fold it a little bit so it's divided into four sections they're not gonna be totally perfect that I'm okay with that but they're closed so there are my four sections so now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take my colors of paper and I'm gonna glue then on to those sections so they're gonna it's going to look something like this so then I can trim off around the back do the same thing and it really doesn't matter what order the colors go in because the wheel will spin and so you're able to adjust who goes to what's ninja so the colour of the paper on the wheels is not any hue so there is the color tripping heart your simple wheel there of course these will be laminated also when I get back to school on Tuesday so there's what the wheel looks like and now we're gonna put our centric choices on to the big part of the wheel so I want to try to get this as centered as possible and I want the big part of the wheel also divided so here's what we're gonna do I'm gonna get this again it's not perfect I'm gonna do it as close as I can I'm gonna use my pink stick for a nice straight line but again it doesn't have to be perfect so if we were to put this back going now we have four sections but I need two choices for every color so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna spin that wheel a little bit so that those lines are kind of in the middle of those sections and I'm gonna make a couple of marks I'm gonna draw my lines again again they're not that's not perfect so there's what your your big wheel should look like and again this might look a little different depending on how many choices you have in your classroom for centers so this gives me two choices for each group so it's going to look something kind of like this so now what you're going to do is you're going to take the pictures or the clipart that you're using for your choices then you're going to put those on your wheel so I'm gonna start with my tubs now of course these are going to be too big so I want to trim them down just a little bit see if we can get there's one and I'm gonna kind of keep this on here because I kinda want to keep track of where the groups are going and what activities they can go to so for this what we're gonna do Rita self and actually used a picture of the bookshelf that um isn't in our classroom library because that's what the kids use books from until we learn how to use our classroom library and our system for putting everything back alright so there are two choices so now we can do our computers picture of the computer now what you're gonna notice is that I'm gonna have tubs as a choice for a lot of the groups because there's a lot of choices in the tubs and so there's a lot of engagement and a lot of opportunities for them to work and learn and not run out of stuff to do and not get bored which eliminates behavior problems and so I tend to put the tubs with read to self or the computers just so that they have an option to go to if they get tired of reading or if they get tired of being on the computer or the iPads so that just gives them an option and a choice so that they're not being a behavior problem because they're bored or they don't have anything to do now you will notice that I am not included on the center wheel because I want the kids in their centers and the the center groups are not necessarily the same as the guided reading groups and so when I need a guided reading group I just called the kids by name for that group so that's why I'm not included as part of the rotation so you'll see that there are three groups that can go to their tubs at any time of course that would be you know the paint group the green group and the blue group might be going to their tubs and so the tubs are color coded to match the same colors of the wheel so they know exactly what tubs they can pick and the activities and the tubs are differentiated and come so that they're meeting the needs of the kids so we have another right there another computer and with the computers and the right the room and the tubs again there are lots of choices and so that's why they can be repeated because it works it will work for all the groups so you can have two or three groups going to write the room or computers or the tubs because it's differentiated and there are lots of choices so everybody can can be working so here is what it looks like with all of their choices and so that is a center wheel so what I'll do when I get back to school is on Tuesday is each piece will be laminated separately and then I'll poke a hole in each piece and I'll use a brass brad to put the wheel together and so the way it works is I only spend the wheel once a day so we do not clean up and rotate centers every so often we stay in our same Center choices for the entire Center time the reason that works is because again they've got choices within choices within choices so they have plenty to do and to keep them engaged and because they have a lot of choice and control there's more buy-in so they're more engaged and we're not losing instructional time why would clean up and transition to new centers so let's say you're in purple so today you could go to computers or you could go to read yourself or the classroom library and you can go back and forth so you can read some books and you can apply on the computer you can put on the computer and you can go read some books if you're in the blue group you're gonna do tubs or write the room if you're in the pink group down here you're gonna do tubs and computer if you're in the green group you're gonna do write the room and tubs so you would have some choice the great thing about the wheel is you can also turn it so you can turn it a full turn and you can totally manipulate the choices so the purple group today they went to computers and read the self so tomorrow I can them two tubs or right the room or if I wanted to I could turn it just a little bit and send them to tubs and computer the next day so again you have some control over the choices and so that's the center wheel and now the way that the kids know what color their group is very very high-tech fancy way to do this call it same colors paper laminated dry erase marker so these are hanging on the wall next to our wheel and I just write the kids names for what color they are so the paint group would be on the pink paper purple group will be on the purple paper so let's say you come up and you're in the purple group so you would see your name on the purple paper you look at the wheel and you can see that you're going to go to tugs and computers today and so you know that those will be your choices for the day the best thing about this like I said at the beginning it's very visual as you can see and so it's very very kid-friendly it's very teacher friendly because um they don't come to me and ask me what's inner can't go to I don't spend a lot of time I don't spend any time at the beginning of Center time saying pink group you're gonna go here and do this purple group you're gonna go here and do this they just simply go and look at the wheel the wheel is in charge and tells them where to go if they come and ask me I tell them I am NOT a wheel so I have no idea what you could do for centers you need to go ask the wheel and so they know that they have to ask the wheel and they do what the wheel tells them so the wheel is all powerful when it comes to center time if you forget to turn the wheel they will definitely let you know and it's great because the kids can even turn the wheel for you and so sometimes I'll control the spin sometimes usually on Fridays I like to just give it a good spin and wherever it ends up it ends up like I said you have lots of control with the wheel but it's also very very very easy to manage for you and it's very kid-friendly it's like I said I've used this for eight years in kindergarten I even used it in second grade and it has totally changed how I ran my center's I will say when I first started with the we in kindergarten we did cleanup and rotate and I would move the wheel every 15 minutes like I said even no matter how quickly you clean up and how great you are transitioning you lose a lot of instructional time so there's no rotating in our classroom during center time and again that's because there's a lot of choice and because they they have some freedom to go back and forth between to and within those two they have all those choices so they have a lot of control and buy-in and so they keep themselves busy and engaged and they get to do kind of what they want to do within the confines of what I want them to do that day and so the tubs are full of center activities so it might be word work sight words sounds CVC words blends all of those skills that we work on and the great thing about the tubs and the centers in our classroom is because I'm creating all of the centers they're all created to be done the same way so the process is the same the only thing that changes is the scale and the clipart and so if you use the centers that I'm creating the great thing about that is after you introduce most of them at the beginning of the year or over the course of a couple of months early in the school year you don't have to spend a lot of time the rest of the year teaching them how to need new centers so I don't spend hardly any time at all on Monday every week teaching new centers because I can just put them in the tubs and the kids know how to do them because we're familiar with them and they look the same and so that process is the same another great eye tool with the tubs is that I I don't kick out centers every week I don't even change out centers every two weeks what I do every couple of weeks is I take some of the activities from the purple the pink and move those to the purple tub move some purple to green green to blue so everybody sees new stuff and then I just need to put a couple of new things in the pink tubs so it keeps it new and fresh but instead of spending hours on Friday after school changing out my centers I spend about 30 minutes everybody comes in on Monday with new centers and I will tell them Monday when a Center time everybody I put out some new stuff in your tubs so make sure you check those out and so that builds that excitement and gets them engaged every month about every month usually it will fall after a holiday I will spend some time and take everything out of the tubs and put in all new stuff but again because I've created it all and I'm creating it very deliberately to be done the same way it doesn't take any reteaching on Monday once all the new centers are out because they've seen the process they know the process they just are working on a different skill and it might even be the same skill just different clipart and since the brain loves novelty simply changing out the clip art on our centers the kids think that it's something brand new and it increases their engagement and again because they're all created the same way it's very teacher friendly and again saving us time so we can focus on instruction and guided reading and not reteaching or teaching how to be in these centers every week and so that's a quick rundown of how centers work in our classroom that's how we make our center wheel and that's how everything runs smoothly so usually I tell people to look for the pumpkins so about October everything is in place this is up and running and everybody kind of understands how it works and what to do of course you even in October I still have a couple who who don't quite get it and we keep working through that but by October all of our stuff is up and running everything is in place and centers are going smoothly so that's the center wheel that we use I have several videos on YouTube and several blog post on the kindergarten smorgasbord comm that will give you a lot more detail and insight into the actual center management and how it works and how I run my Center so you can check those out and if you want even more information and if you want to spend the day with me come to our one-day conference in October a smorgasbord of teaching it's Saturday October 29 here in Nashville it features myself and Debi Clement Debbie Clement we'll be kicking off the day with music and dancing and a lot of fun and high energy and then the rest of the day I'm going to be in reading strategies and ideas and resources math strategies ideas and resources and I'll be doing a lot of talking about centers and at the end of the day we'll do a make and take and so you will actually leave the conference with a complete math Center activity that you can put into your classroom on Monday when you get back to school so go to the kindergarten or news board comm click on register now and you'll get all of the information about the conference and you can sign up we would love to have everybody it's Saturday October 29th it's in downtown Nashville at our new convincing City Convention Center the Music City Center and if you register before September 15th and pay your registration fee you're entered into a drawing for the Debbie smugly Memorial Scholarship and so one person will have their paid registration refunded in honor of my mom and so that person will get to come to our conference for free so definitely check that out get signed up we would love to have everybody greates does it cover free it'll cover pre-k through 2nd at the conference so Andy ll I have most of my kids reall students so I have a lot of al friendly strategies so yeah so I hope to see all of you in our conference in October if you have any questions about centers of the center we'll check out the blog check out YouTube hit us up on Facebook we'll be happy to direct you and answer any questions that you have all right thanks for watching everybody bye

Channel: Greg Smedley-Warren

Views: 24,292

Rating: 4.8996863 out of 5

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Id: gFyppKxvgAA

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 05 2016