Teachers who are preparing to do centers with your kids-- I highly suggest introducing your center work in a whole group setting first. It may not be the exact activity they do in the center but something similar will allow you to demonstrate, answer questions and hopefully dispel imany misconceptions they have before you start center rotations. This will help your kids be more comfortable and able to focus on the actual task rather than figuring out how to do it.
All that being said....
Recently out kinder team bought the math centers bundle-B. U. I. L. D. Math bundle from Elizabeth Hall over at Kickin It in Kindergarten! It's available in Teachers Pay teachers. If you are familiar with Daily five it's like that for math. Kind of.
At the start of the year I introduce our centers as a whole group first then do them in small groups. There are five math tubs I use with B. U. I. L. D. so it worked out perfect to do one a day for a week. In our reading centers we did not have to do all of them whole group because two of them are small groups with me or my teacher assistant. We did write the room this week with shapes and letters in the alphabet. I gave each child a sheet with the letters of the alphabet on a coconut tree (we read chicka chicka boom boom) and as they found the letters they colored them in. This was really simple and just got them introduced to it. We practice walking around the room, not yelling "I found it!" Every time they found a letter to the person across the room and continually walking. The next one we did was listening to reading. I played the three little pigs for them and they all drew pictures about the story they listened to. I even had a few write about it. It was only a string of letters but it is something and for the first week of kindergarten I was proud of them.
My kids did pretty good with them and next week I will split them up and have them do the centers on their own. They will only do one a day for now and we will progress to more as time goes on. Starting centers and getting them running in my class takes some time but after about two (maybe three, depending on my group) we are in a pretty good routine that sets us up for success for the rest of the year (mostly).
I go over the rules of working in groups each day, before we split up. I do this every day, even in January and February. It goes a lot quicker then but we review it as a reminder. Here they are...
G- get along
R- respect each other
O- on task
U- use quiet voices
P- participate
S- stay with your group
Here are a few pictures of my kids working on B. U. I. L. D. MATH centers this past week
