A Guide to Starting First Grade Math Centers

When I taught first grade, starting the year off was always daunting.  The tasks seem endless: setting up your classroom, getting to know your students, labeling and organizing all of the materials, etc.  But without fail, getting first grade math centers up and running in my classroom is one of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the year. 

Why do I need first grade math centers?

You may wonder, Why do I need to do centers in first grade?” and  “When is the best time to get started on implementing first grade math centers?”

According to Scholastic.com, “A learning center is typically a designated area within the classroom that provides students with exciting and interesting experiences to practice, enrich, reteach, and enhance their learning.” 

Centers are critical to the primary classroom because once they up and running, the teacher is free to meet with small groups or individual students.  This is when you have the opportunity to differentiate instruction for the unique learners in your classroom.  The other students are engaging in hands-on learning that reinforces concepts that you have previously taught them. Win-win!

Procedures for math centers

If you establish procedures properly in the beginning, first grade math centers are fun for you and your students all year long. I usually introduce centers around the third day of school.  By then, we have played several rounds of get-to-know-you games, read many stories, and established our classroom rules together, and we are ready to move on to something new.

The most important rule of beginning math centers is to never start with unfamiliar activities.  I always try to find something that my students already know how to do either from experiences at home or from the previous year.  This allows children to focus on learning the procedures of doing centers rather than trying to learn new content.  

Some of the things I usually choose to start with are reading math picture books, pattern blocks or building blocks, and puzzles.  I keep rotations short at the beginning and build up the length of time as students build up their stamina of attending to a task.

Before we begin, I show each set of materials and show students where I will place each center. I also try to think of what potential problems may come up during the center time and address it upfront.  Even if I think I am overstating the obvious, it is important to be clear.  For example, I would tell my students that they must not throw the blocks or knock over someone else’s creation.  Be very explicit!

Next, I clearly explain my very basic rules for center time:

1. Stay at your place
2. Quiet voices
3. Always working
4. Get along

I post the rules in the classroom and are review them daily at the beginning of the year.  It is important that you don’t have too many rules.  Try to choose general rules that cover a variety of situations.  It does you no good if you have so many rules that students can’t even remember them!

I always have my students rotate clockwise around the room, and I spread out the groups as much as possible to eliminate any noise issues and temptations to wander from the group. I set a visual timer on the whiteboard, and we begin!  When time is up, I set a new timer for a one minute clean up.  As students finish cleaning up, they stand up and fold their hands to show me their group is ready to move on.  

During this time, I try to circulate to ensure all students are participating in our efforts.  Transition times are important to monitor, as this is often when off-task behaviors are most likely to occur.  I often hand out small prizes/tickets etc. to students caught following procedures.

During the math centers, anyone that cannot follow the rules gets one warning.  After that, if the rules are broken, the student is sent to his/her seat. This should be done in a quick and calm manner.  You should restate what the expectations are and let him/her know that it is time to rest quietly until the next rotation.  The child should be invited to have another chance to participate and follow the rules.  

If you are very CONSISTENT, you will have little difficulty getting young students to comply.  You will rarely have to send anyone to their seat.  Children want to be a part of the fun and action in the classroom.  Yes, you will always have an outlier that may cause disturbances, but this process will work with the majority of the class.

Practice makes perfect, so we practice over and over until students are able to complete the center rotations as expected.  Never do I start with new content until this process has been mastered.  Let me say that again for the people in the back!  NEVER do I start with new content until students have mastered this process.

Introducing new content

Once students are able to handle new content, I start introducing hands-on activities.   

As explained by the Think Fun blog,  “It (hands-on learning) allows students to experiment with trial and error, learn from their mistakes, and understand the potential gaps between theory and practice.” These play-based centers are usually math puzzles, dice games, matching games, and board games. 

I start introducing first grade math games that practice a skill that I have taught them.  I also explicitly teach how to play the game.  It is helpful to develop a signal for how students should determine what to do if they are confused. 

Many teachers use the “ask three before me method.”

This method has students ask three classmates for help before interrupting the teacher. Don’t forget to praise students that are following these procedures!

This coming school year, center time may look a little different.  You may want to place students with a single partner for a game instead of a small group.   Another possible way to run centers is for the teacher to rotate the materials. This may be easier than having students get up and move around the room.  Students will probably need to have their own sets of materials and manipulatives instead of shared supplies.

If you want to check out some of my fun math center games:

Burger Chase Beginning Addition Game

Flip Flop Into Summer

Dino Stomp Even and Odd Board Game

Or you can grab the bundle here.

If you are looking for digital centers, check these out!

Digital Counting Coins Clip Cards

Digital Time to the Hour and Half Hour Clip Cards

Adding With a Number Line Digital Clip Cards

I hope you find this process to be clear and easy to implement in your own primary classroom.    Remember, your life is what you make it!  Take your time in the beginning, so you can make your math centers run smoothly all year long!

Don’t forget to grab my TOTALLY FREE guide to preparing for your teaching observation! Click here to grab it now and save it for just the right time.

Have a lovely day!