How I Run My Kindergarten Centers

centers centers centers I am talking all about centers hey guys it's mummy and upon request I am going to do a video about centers how I run my centers all of that now it is Friday I am ready to go home and there is so much that comes with such as how I organize my materials where I get my materials from how I run it how I organize that how I started how it looks mid here how it looks beginning here so I have just decided to spend this month doing as many videos as necessary to explain my Center show you examples of things that I do etc etc etc so this video is just going to be how I run my centers what the organization of that looks like so hopefully that can just kind of get you started if you're starting centers or you can get some ideas and things like that so the first thing I'm going to start with by showing you is how many centers I have and how I label my centers so my students know where to go okay so for this portion I'm not going to be on the camera but I want to show you so up in the ceiling I have these little signs they're little unicorns I got the clip art I will link it below and I just put a one so there's one two since your 3 is over there four five and six and then this is our ketchup table which I can tell you about in just a second okay so if it's important for me to show you that first just so that you had an idea of how my students know where the centuries are really by the time we started those are kind of unnecessary for them to be there because they get the get they really begin to understand it very quickly okay so I have six groups during centers and my groups this year I have 19 kids so I have groups of three and then one group of four at the beginning of the year I just group my centers based off of their alphabet knowledge so we do a letter sound and then um I just make my groups based off of that just to get it started and then I will obviously change that based off of new information that I receive during reading groups running records etc whatever it is whatever information comes to pass that tells me that this is not a good group or this is a good fit and that type of thing so I have six centuries and we rotate through all six in one day last year we rotated through three so we did centers for four days so they would rotate like we'd have day one and they'd go through one through three and then they - they do their second three this year um we just realized last year like we were we felt like we weren't meeting with our groups enough and we really wanted to figure out a way to be able to fit in those six groups I did that my first year and although it is a lot of prep as far as prepping the center's um I think it's important for me to meet with all my guided reading groups every single day or four days a week so um so the kids are in their groups and I do not have anything up in my room that tells them where they go because all they need to know is where they start and my centers just rotate clockwise so they know if they start here their next one is there their next one is there their next one is there so that leads into the first day of centers introducing centers all I literally do is have the kids practice rotating and so I'm gonna tell you how I do that I have a bell I actually got this idea from my team ditcher Lauren um I love it so one ring means clean up clean up it's completely quiet no talking you are sitting at your spot until I see that everyone is cleaned up and we are ready to rotate and then to mean switch and then three main centers are completely done it's time to wrap up we're done clean all the way up and I normally say that all right it's time to clean all the way up at the beginning so the first day of center is like I said there's nothing at the tables there's nothing at the center's all they are doing is practicing rotating with their groups so I basically tell them like okay this is where you're starting and then I say okay pretend to clean up and they pretend to clean up and then I all right switch walking feet no talking oh we're talking we got to keep on practicing and basically I just want them to understand like there's no talking during cleanup because we need to focus on getting our Center clean so that we can switch we can't take five minutes to clean up I can't take three minutes to clean up it needs to take it needs to be like boom boom BAM clean go boom bye boom because we don't have time for that so that I do that for the first day then the second day I did it again and then I had like we did have two beginning and then the third day is when I actually had things at the sitter's and I still talk them through it okay one bell clean up - Bell switched alright it's time to clean all the way up so a lot of people ask me if I do daily five no I do not um but it kind of has some of those same components so I have my guided reading which is my Center Center one I'm at my second Center I normally do some form of a phonics skill whether it's vowels rhyming something like that my third Center is computer so we have a computer program that they use or they go on Star fo which is a free computer program there is a paid version or they go on Lexia like I said or math game something on the computer my third Center is normally sight word so word work and then later on in the year they'll start to like do more writing things sentences things like that sorry I got that mixed up that's my fourth Center my third sonars Computers my fifth Center is math so there's some form of a math activity and then my sixth Center is um iPad so there's just a ton of downloaded games that we have on our iPad so sucky part about our iPad is we are not allowed to download our own games so when I see all these cool new things I have to contact tech tech has to take the iPads they take them for like two days and then they put them on there and they don't really like to do that so I kind of just have what I have on there and I don't really have the option of adding new things which is fine whatever the kids like it there's a lot of good games on there and normally like once or twice a year we might like ask them to add some new games if we see something cool okay so now I want to show you how I lay out my materials and how I store them so like I said I do not do daily five but there are different activities that work on all of those basically the same skills so I have these bins and I have two for each Center that requires extra material so I do not have a bin or my table guided reading I do not have a bin for computers and I do not have a bin for iPad so the bins are labeled with the number so the kids easily know which table this goes to they all stay at my guided reading table which is great this year because I don't have to use my guided reading table as a table for my students I had two last year with 26 kids but with 19 kids I don't have to do that so I can have all my stuff here and ready and I'm loving it so like for example Center for today they just did let her play them so I had it laid out here and I said okay the team captain for center for needs to come and get their materials they take them they bring them to the floor at the end of Center everyone backs of their materials here so I'll just show you guys what my beginning centers look like because when you're first starting centers you don't want it to be something too tedious you want it to be fun activities you want the kids to grow to like centers you just want it to be something that's not taking too long because you're trying to build up their stamina that's very important with centers you don't want them to be sitting there for it's way too long because they need to get adjusted to the way that they should be working on centers on what they should be doing how to stay on task how to clean up there's just a lot of things so they had their name handwriting page let us enter the play-doh medal I introduced my students today not all of them at once I introduced four of them so I had those as an option I had a puzzle as an option that was at the same interest in been so they could choose to do the puzzle or sentence a math number game where my app has been normally because I have not introduced my iPad yet just because I just got them back so I didn't have time to introduce them or even look to see what my screens look like and like make sure everything was where I wanted to so next week I will be introducing those so I had this where the iPads were or the kids could explore the library which a lot of the kids did do that and that really made me happy just to see them like instead of using the puzzle they chose to read a book some of them chose to do the puzzles so that was great then I had just like this fun game where they take the pieces and make the different shapes and then finally I had where I have these teddy bears and there's different patterns and they can make patterns so real simple nothing crazy so this week is our first week with pack form words so that will be that Center will really be like in full spring next week I will have our popcorn where play-doh match that I have I will have different popcorn weird activities it's just different things like that for my students to do they will be able to do the iPad they will still be doing the computers I will start guide in reading groups and then my other two centers may just be a simple math game like something with numbers and the same for my like phonics Center it might be just like them doing different letter activities whether it's color the letter that's color or tracing the letter or something like that so it's really really pretty simple so really that's kind of all there is to it if I students get loud during centers oh I know what else I want to show you but before I do that if my students get a little noisy during centers I will say oh me and they go oh my so just the two starters like that jebel I really like four switches cleaning up and then another thing I have this frog so if my students need to go to the restroom they take this frog they put it at their seat and then when they're done they put it back over here that way they don't bother me or anything like that other things I want to make sure to show you ignore my desk I'm sorry this is where my students turn and all of their sensor works so not that so they turn their sensor work into here and the highlighters are right there to make sure that they highlight their name so I check all of their sensor work before the end of the day and I Circle any mistakes or anything that I want them to correct if my students do not finish something these bins are where they put their their things that they need to finish they will have a red folder I just haven't introduced them and these are their ketchup folders and they will go in the in their group and the reason that I put them here instead of my book boxes that each kit has is because I can easily look here and see like if these were all in her folder I can easily look here and see and say oh my gosh like you have a lot of stuff in your Center folder so it's easier for me to have these separated so I can see who is not finishing their work so if they do not finish something they put it in their ketchup folder and it's in here and then they have until Friday to get it done if it is not done by Friday they have to do it during our Friday free choice we have free choice every single day so I don't feel too bad saying that by Friday if you don't have everything done in your folder you have to get it done I also have a ketchup table so I do tell my students that if they are at iPads that they should use their time wisely and go and do their ketchup work before they get on iPads every other Center is something that I really really want them to be focusing on and I'm not saying that I don't want them on iPads but I would rather them go to the ketchup table so it has a ketchup on there go to the ketchup table and do their ketchup work so again let me just explain that each student gets a red folder it's called their ketchup folder it's in the bait a bin labeled for their group it's a color and a number and they have until Friday to get that done if it's not done then at some point during the day whatever point you decide that is when they get it done there's an important component of centers to make sure that everything is managed properly is you're going to have students who finish earlier than others so I have early finishers these are one of my early finishers these are just fluency letter cards I can link where I got these from so if they finish early they can sit and do these at their Center I also have stem bins I can also link where I got these from so if they finish early again they can grab a stem and work in the stem beds and then as always they can work on get a book and read a book or they can do their catch-up work which if they have catch-up work I tell them that their catch-up work must be done before they choose Stebbins before they choose a letter X the letter fluencies or before they choose a book to read this video is helpful let me just wrap it up because I know that that was a lot my centers are labeled by the top one Bell clean up two Bell switch three Bell sinners are done early finishers have something for your students to do when they finish early Stemmons are a great one I don't want my kids to feel like they're being punished because they finished their work early so I want it to be something that they enjoy doing and my kids love Simmons you don't want to just give them another worksheet or another activity and make them feel like I finished my work really I'm being punished like no that's not there but I do tell them that they have catch-up work they need to do that before Stebbins or before any other early finisher that they choose so having early finishers is a good one a ketchup folder for work that they don't finish so that they can move on to their next Center but they can still save that work for later a basket to turn it I'll finish work making sure that you are grading it and assessing it and looking over it early on so that you can address any issues that they may be baby having quickly instead of waiting until the end of the week or them into the month and I know sometimes we don't get to that trust me I don't get to it but try your best to do that and then bins to store my set present some people have room in their classroom to leave so it's at a place I do have some centers that will be like the same and be pretty frequent but I don't have that going on right now and that is pretty much it something but when they go to the bathroom so that they don't bug you and that's all all right I'm going home now it's Friday it's a three-day weekend I hope that you all have a great week if you have any questions let me know and like I said I will do more videos on centers throughout this month so give me some ideas of other things you guys are wanting to know or if this was enough then we gonna be done alright guys thanks for watching for more of my videos make sure you subscribe to my channel and if you like this video don't forget to give it a big thumbs up love you guys bye thanks so much for watching this video to see more of my videos you can subscribe to my page by clicking that picture of me up in the left-hand corner and if you like this video don't forget to give it a big thumbs up and leave comments with any questions that you may have I'm happy to answer love you guys bye

Channel: itsmoniquesworld

Views: 130,305

Rating: 4.9026113 out of 5

Keywords: youtube, itsmoniquesworld, centers, kindergarten, organization, how to, what to do, procedures, routines, classroom, teacher, teaching, teach, kinder, primary, first, how i run my kindergarten centers

Id: db923UsYj-E

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 04 2017