Spiderrific Math Centers

Yippee! 

 

 

I finally began using math centers.  I've always struggled to create and maintain math centers.  I always felt that there was not enough time to utilize them.  However, this year I made a commitment to finally put them to use.  This year, with the common core underway, our new math book seems to be covering many skills under one chapter.  The students seem to be struggling a bit trying to keep up.  Therefore, I really thought that using math centers with them would be beneficial.  Since it's October and the students are excited about Halloween approaching, I decided to create a Spideriffic Math Center.  We already covered Order of Operations and Place Value and have been working on dividing with 2 digit divisors.  I didn't want them to forget the lessons we already covered at the beginning of the school year, so that's what I'm focusing my math centers on. 

 

 

 

 

The students seemed excited about using the math center.  I also realized how quickly some of them have forgotten certain concepts.  I started them with the Order of Operations task cards, and although they all recalled the order(Please, Excuse, My, Dear, Aunt, Sally), they would sometimes forget to refer to the phrase as they would work out the problems.  They seemed to know to always work the parenthesis and exponents first, but then they would just go in the order that the problem was written.  Some students also had forgotten how to interpret exponents.  It was great to be able to work with each individual student in the area where they seemed to be struggling.

 

 

Once students completed the task card, they would check their own work using the answer key and together we would review the problems they got wrong.   Once they complete the Order of Operations task cards, they will begin using the Place Value task cards.

 

 Can't wait to create a new math center next month!

 

What math center have you found that really seems to work?