Hi, I am trying to decide, before school starts in a couple of days, how I would like my students to switch centers. I will be meeting with small reading groups while my students are at centers and I will then pull them from their centers - I am not a center. I am thinking of making a work board and having a list of about 3 centers for each student to visit, but I am not sure if I want to use a timer and time 20 minutes for each center or if I should try to train them to be aware of what 20 minutes feels like and be responsible for switching their own centers. I have only used the timer method which I don't like because some kids may finish early and then interrupt other students and the timer interrupts my reading group who may run 2 minutes over the 20 minutes - however, once they hear the buzz, it destroys the wrap up of the reading group. My friend I taught with last year started the year timing and then stopped so the kids had to switch on their own. I am just thinking that perhaps a student will fly through each center and then be "done" or that a student will get "lost" in their activity and not be aware of the time. Sorry for the rambling and I hope I am making sense, but any advice on students switching centers would be most appreciative! Thanks!
Do you have a smart board? I use the timer on mine, and after they get used to it, it is not a big deal.
Could you be the timer? When you finish with a reading group, make a quiet announcement that they should be wrapping up their center and moving to another - that would give your slower workers that extra few minutes, and you'd have the time you need with your group.
I have one center a day so they can go in-depth. Each center is 30 minutes, and there are 6 rotations, so centers change every 6 days. I do this because I have advanced reading and there are 7 or 8 Gifted students in there who leave on Wednesdays. Last year, I did two a day, but that didn't permit me much time for a mini-lesson. We are starting centers in either a week or two because we've been going on with procedures for the last two weeks. I want to know they are truly ready before we start.
I also am trying to organize centers. I have many, many folder centers that I want students to do independently...5 per week. I also want to meet with guided reading groups 2 times a week. How do you go about planning and organinizing once you know their reading levels and how many is too many to have in a guided reading group at once. Also, if I put out all my folder centers and let them do 5 per week...I have a sheet for them to record the ones they have done and to attach the activity sheets to all in a folder, how much time do I give them to do centers those two days? I plan to do whole group instruction on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and centers with guided reading on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
My reading groups, since I have 27 students... have... 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, and 6 students. This is because of partners, and the group of 5 has a reading partnership trio in it.
We just look at the clock ourselves, wait until the time aproaches, wrap up and THEN announce a switch.
I have them switch when I switch groups. I have them freeze, and switch. This happens during the clean up/transition time from one group to the next anyway, so I use it as the time to change activities. I don't use a timer. Sometimes one group takes a little longer for some reason, and I would hate to have to cut it off.
I use a timer... it's a student job to reset it when it beeps after 15 minutes. However, I've taught the expectation that the group with me needs to stay with me until we're done. Reading groups follow a predictable pattern so it's usually fairly obvious to them that if it beeps and we're not done, they have to stay with me until we cover all parts of our group's time. (It also helps that the "center" I have immediately after meeting with me is writing a reading response, so it's not like I'm making them late for computers or something like that).
I do the same thing as danic. I have that electronic stoplight timer and I tell the kids who are at seatwork or centers to start wrapping up when they see it flash on yellow. By the time the buzzer sounds and the red light flashes they should be back in their seats. The group that is with me knows that they have to stay with me until I send them back to their seats for their seatwork. I also only have the students go to one center during group time. If they finish that one early they can either go to the classroom library to read a book, finish an unfinished center or any other unfinished work in their catch up folders.
