Math Center Quick Tip: No more mixed up centers or sorting cards!!

Hello, dear readers! I am coming to you tonight with a quick tip. 

I think it is purely genius and it has saved me many headaches not to mention- precious time!

It was some time last year when it hit me. I was sorting through math centers that had become mixed together. I can’t imagine how because I know kids always zip those little baggies and make sure to gather every single piece before putting them away. Who are we kidding!?!? It never fails no matter how many times we remind or how much we emphasize the importance pieces always end up getting left out or worse you end up sorting what feels like a thousand cards that all look the same to make sure that every center has the correct cards. Well no more of that!

Solution: 

This is the easiest thing ever it just looks like a lot of steps. I hope I explain it well!

1. Figure out how many pages you will need to copy for each center. For example if there are 4 pages of cards and 1 game board you will need 5 pages per center. 

2. Gather 5 pages of a variety of construction paper colors. (5 red, 5 blue, 5 pink, 5 purple, etc.) You should have as many colors as you have centers. If I have 6 kids per center at a time then I will need 6 different colors. 

3. Once you have gathered the construction or colored paper put it in the bypass tray of the copy machine. Place your originals for the math center in the paper feed on top. 

4. Choose the number of copies you will need (the number of paper colors you have/centers). Click sort and START. (It’s very important to click sort so that the all pages are on one color. If you forget this then page 1 will be all orange, page 2 will be all green etc. so choose SORT.)

5. The centers will copy and each center will be on a different color!

This piece actually showed up on my desk yesterday. It was perfect timing for a math piece to be forgotten. No problem I just handed it to a student and asked them to find the green center. It was put away without any extra work! 

On another note, my class is amazing. I don’t mean to brag, but I just love em’! Here are a couple of pictures of kids hard at work on our newest center. Happy teaching friends!!