Math Center Ideas for First Grade

If you’ve been here for a while, you know how passionate I am about quality, engaging math centers.  Math centers are a great place for students to practice what they have already learned, new skills and working with partners/groups, and independent work strategies. However, I’ve been in a place of complete overwhelm when it comes to math centers so this post is going to be full of math center ideas for first grade to help you avoid the overwhelm! This blog post can help you out if you need a place to start. You may also want to check out this guide!

Math Center Ideas for First Grade

Before we dive into actual activities that you can put in your centers, let talk about some ideas for what your rotations can actually be.  In my classroom, I have 4 rotations Monday-Thursday and then 4 “fun” rotations on Fun Friday as a reward for their hard work. 

Monday-Thursday: 

• Technology – iReady Math (district funded and required
• Hands On – Math Center Activities from TPT, either review of skills or new skills
• Fact Fluency – Fact Fluency games and activities
• Independent Work – Math Journals on our new skill for that day/week

Friday (STEM Centers):

• Science – Exploring Sensory Items, Sorting Activities, Experiments, etc. 
• Technology – Free Choice of websites, games and activities under our STEM Google Classroom Subject
• Engineering – Building
• Math – Math Games

Some Other Center Ideas: 

• Partner Games 
• Building 
• Skill Practice 
• Math Journal 
• Math Notebook 
• A specific website such as Prodigy, Boddle, IXL, SplashLearn, etc. 
• Math Games 
• Tactile 
• STEM 
•  Math Review

**Do you have a center that you don’t see listed? Leave it in the comment section for other teachers to see!

Math Center Activities 

So now that you have some ideas for what your actual centers can be, let’s talk about what activities students could do at each center.  I am going to break them up by category and provide any helpful links.  

Hands On – Math Game – Math Activity Centers – Partner/Group Activities 

If you have a math center that is a hands on, math activity type center here are some of my favorite activities: 

1. A curriculum specific center set – My school district uses Go Math and I love these Go Math centers from TPT, I own the first and second grade set 
2. Spiral Review Math Centers – I created this set based on prerequisite skills I knew first graders needed + skills assessed throughout first grade. 
3. Math Games – I own way too many from various sellers to link but check out this search.
4. Math Printables that come with your districts curriculum – Often curriculum comes with printable math games or activities that align with your lessons.  You sometimes also have a separate workbook or two with activities that you can copy for centers. This is a no frills way to stock your math centers with things you already have. 
5. Pinterest Games – Don’t forget to check out the wealth of knowledge and ideas on Pinterest, just one quick search brings up hundreds of easy, hands on math games!

Math Fact Fluency  

If you don’t already know the importance of practice fact fluency in primary grades, you can read my stance on that here.  Here are some great activities and games to practice fluency skills:

1. War – War is always a fan favorite in the classroom. I have addition war, subtraction war, subtilizing war and more that we play
2. Bingo – Bingo is a super easy way to get students practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, number ID, and more. You can find bingo card generators online to create your own cards! You can even practice specific strategies like this Doubles Bingo.
3. Bump – My students LOVE bump. It’s a competitive way to practice fluency. It is also a great way to talk about playing fair, winning, losing, etc.
4. Make __ games – This is another favorite that can be played independently or with a partner.

*If you want to check out a variety of fact fluency games, check out this category in my TPT store.

Independent Work 

Independent work is an important center as a teacher because it’s a way for you to assess where your students are without guidance from you or help from peers. While I don’t grade every assignment for independent work, I do pull some of my grades from this center.  This center is very beneficial for standards based grading because it is an easy way for me to assess a standard multiple times and then take the average.  I also use this to help me create station groups and small groups. Here are some of the activities that I assign my students at their independent work station:

1. This is another place you can fit in printables from your districts math curriculum.
2. Math Journals – My students primarily do math journals at their independent work center.
3. Printable Math Worksheets – Another place I pull independent work is from education.com. There are a ton of options that are great for differentiation.
4. Intervention Kits – I own a few intervention kits from various sellers on TPT. I love using these to differientiate my students work.

Technology

If you are new around here, you may not know that I have my Master’s in Educational Technology. I am very passionate about using technology in the classroom.  I often get scoffed at for that statement but let me explain. Many teachers hate how prominent technology has become in schools and if I’m being honest it’s because it’s used improperly and as a way to entertain students.  This is NOT what I mean when I encourage you to have a technology center.  Instead, I encourage to think about the world our students are entering into post high school. Whether they are joining the military, going to work, going to college, trade school, family businesses, etc. their world is FULL of technology.  As teachers, our job is to prepare our students for whatever paths they may take. We can help do that by introducing them to different technologies and teaching them valuable skills. Okay… I’m going to save this soapbox for another blog post. With that being said, here are some things I like to include at my technology center:

1. Prodigy – This is great technology activity especially for students who need enrichment activities.
2. Boddle – This is another great video game like math game. It meets students where they are and gives great insights to the teacher via printable reports.
3. SplashLearn – This is a great one too because you can assign work to your students. It is an easy way to send them premade lessons that are on their level.
4. Boom Cards – Boom shouldn’t just be left for virtual learning! This is a great way to have your students practice math repetition tasks like addition/subtraction fluency but it is way more engaging than a worksheet AND it grades for you.

I hope this blog post gave you some great insight into some activities that you can include in your math centers.  If you have any other valuable tips for teachers please leave them in the comments! As always, if you have question, want to chat or are curious about other things in my classroom leave them in the comments or reach out on Instagram @sunshineinprimary.