Student CENTERed

The Key is Organization

Using centers in the secondary classroom takes some planning on the front end. However, once everything is set up, you can just sit back and facilitate. The best part of centers is letting kids learn through discovery. I've already blogged about bringing centers into high school. Now, I'll show you how I implement them in my class. 

Classroom Arrangement

First things first: the groupings. As a rule I never allow more than four kids to gather in one place. Somewhere, someplace, someone said something about the more the evil-er... or something along those lines. To help kids get where they should be for the centers, I organize my classroom like this:

The view of my room from atop a rickety ladder

No grouping has more than four, no less than three. Each table has all the needed supplies for whatever their task may be. Crayons and paper for pictures, dictionaries for vocabulary, file folders with directions.

Dispersing the Kiddos

But how do kids know where to sit? Do you just let them sit ANYWHERE? Uhhh.... no. These are freshman. Upon entrance into my fortress of high expectations I hand them a card with a number on it. The number corresponds to numbers on each table. When I make the cards I ensure that the number of chairs matches the number of cards at each station. This eliminates seven people around one station.

Folders and Switching

Once they get to their table, they find a file folder. Inside the folder, the students can find everything they need to complete the task.


Each center takes about twenty minutes. For me, that's half of the class which means we switch in the middle of class. That sounds like a huge headache, right? I can hear them now: I did this center already? Which number am I supposed to get? We didn't get a folder! We have three folders on our table! CHAOS!! Nothing a simple sticky note can't solve. On each file folder I have where they send their folder and which number they should be receiving. If the kids know their numbers, then they can do this.

You can find the center directions that I put in each folder here. These centers cover skills in "The Most Dangerous Game."

Happy teaching!

Elementary invades Secondary

Elementary vs. Secondary

The gap between elementary and secondary isn't just middle school. For the most part, secondary teachers stay away from elementary teachers. Just walk into their respective classrooms and you'll see one reason why.

AHHHH!! MY EYES!!

Peaceful, zen, orderly... much better

And there are other reasons: their enthusiastic demeanor, endless optimism, tolerance for bodily secretions. I'm sure our sharp sarcasm, minimalistic classrooms, and constant complaints about having over a hundred kids instead of twenty-five don't do well to bridge the gap between our worlds. 

However, I don't want to discount everything they do in their classes as "little kid" stuff that would never work in my "big kid" class. After all, their little kids are still living inside every one (of my 157) kids sitting in my stark, white classroom. 

My Adventure with the Dangerous Game

I thought I'd try out one of the most famous aspects of elementary school: centers (dun-dun-duuuuunnnnnn). The first thing I realized on my road to creating centers (after I thought about how I have no space to let kids mingle about in my sardine can of a room) was they are A LOT of work. Seriously! How does any one person plan center after center throughout the year? That endless optimism must come in handy for them because geez! 

But, after I did the work I didn't have to do ANY. THING. ELSE. I just released the hounds students and they began chiseling away at their work. Sure, I had to help when we switched stations to ensure no one got lost along the way, and there were some that didn't understand the directions here and there, but for the most part they kids helped each other while I sat back and watched the magic happen. Then I thought, no wonder elementary teachers do this. It's like putting on a movie (that you made) and letting them sit and watch it. 

Get it here.

I plan to use more centers this year, and I'm going to start my year with this one I made for Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game." I am going to make a few changes this year. Last year, we read the story without stopping to talk about anything. Just plowed right on through. As an English teacher that was hard, but the point is to let the students discover meaning on their own, not spoon-feed it to them, so leave your spoons at home. After reading, I gave the students numbers 1-9. Whichever number they got, that's where they began. We did three centers per day, but that wasn't really enough time for the kids to finish each station so I have a lot of them in tutoring to get done. This year, I'll probably do two centers per day. It doesn't matter what order the centers are done in either. At the end, they turn in every paper with a silhouette of an island on the bottom. It's that easy. And the grading wasn't too bad either. 

The best thing I learned from doing centers was that I shouldn't stay away from those bubbly elementary teachers. They could have just the thing my classroom is missing. And I don't mean thousands of colors. 

Happy teaching!