I have tried many different ways to organize materials. I feel like I finally found a way that works for me.
~ Zeba from Episode 103 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
Wondering how to manage all those center materials without creating chaos or drowning in bins and bags?
In this episode, I’m breaking down how I organize my math and literacy centers in a way that actually works for me (and might just work for you too!). I’ll walk you through what I’ve tried, what didn’t stick, and what I finally figured out about keeping things easy to grab, easy to store, and easy for students to manage independently.
In this episode I share:
- How I organize math centers by unit using labeled Ziploc bags
- Where I store everything so it’s ready to go—even on hectic days
- Why I organize literacy materials by skill instead of unit
- Tips for reusing materials without making a million copies
- How to build independence by teaching kids to set up and clean up their own centers
Related Episodes:
- Building Effective Literacy Centers with the Science of Reading ~ Ep. 78
- How to Effectively Manage Kindergarten Math Centers ~ Ep. 71
Get All My Centers:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe. Today, I want to talk about how to organize all the materials and centers that you accumulate and what the best way is to organize them. I get this question a lot of like, okay, I have all these centers, but how do I organize them and make it manageable? So let’s dive in.
[0:21] You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away I’m Zeba creator and founder of kindergarten cafe and i help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:16] I do mine slightly differently for math versus literacy, so I’m going to kind of talk about it first with math and then we’ll talk about literacy. Before I start anything, I have tried many different ways to organize materials. I feel like I finally found a way that works for me, but it might not be the way that works for you, and that’s okay. So I think it will help you hearing how I organize my math differently from my literacy because it will give you multiple ideas of ways to organize them. And what I want you to do is to try one way and see how it works for a little bit. And then you can always change it if it’s not working for you. There’s no point in forcing a routine or organization system if it doesn’t work because then you won’t stay organized. So we want it to benefit you. So pick a style that works for you. Okay, so how do I organize my math centers?
[2:12] I have math centers organized by unit based on the curriculum. So I take a big two-gallon size Ziploc bag and I write unit one on the bag. And then I put inside of that bag a one-gallon bag with the game that I use in that unit. So in that two gallon unit one bag, I have maybe eight to ten one gallon bags with everything I need for that center. Now, because it’s a center, I don’t need a whole class set. I need four or five copies of the game. And, you know.
[2:53] That it might just be the game board or something that I’m needing. It might be a visual or a resource that I need, but generally it’s just sort of the game because the other materials I’ll get out when I’m putting the station out. So I’ll talk about that in just a second. I like having everything organized by unit because then I can, when I’m starting unit one, I can grab the unit one bag and I can put it near my centers and then I can go through it when I’m looking for the center and I can pull out the one that I need. Some of the games for my curriculum anyway, we use over and over again. We’ll use it multiple times. But then I’m putting it in multiple bags. I don’t want to go searching in unit one when I’m in unit three for the game that they were introduced to in unit one. Like, no, if I’m doing in unit one, I have a copy in unit one. If I’m doing in unit three, I have a copy in unit three. Okay. But I like just being able to grab the bag and then know that everything that I need for that unit is right by all my centers things. Because, let me be honest, I’m not always the best at getting the math station set up ahead of time or, like, before that day, and so then I’m quickly trying to run and find what I need. And it doesn’t take very long because it’s all in the bag. It says Unit 1. And then inside the bag, the bags are all, the smaller bags are all labeled with what the game is, so I can easily find what it is I’m looking for. I keep all of these big bags in a cabinet.
[4:21] I used to have them in a bin, but they don’t. Didn’t fit as well in the bins so I just keep I have the space in a cabinet so I just keep in the cabinet lined up in order of the units and like I said I just grab and go as I need now so let’s say I have a game that needs whiteboard markers so let’s say that I have a math game from unit one that needs a whiteboard marker because I do I didn’t say this before I do like to laminate my games or put them in like whiteboard pouches or something or even just sheet protectors so that I can use them over and over and over again. I don’t want to make a million copies. I don’t want to be monitoring the copies at the station. I want the kids to be able to do it over and over again as many times as they want. So that means that they’ll need whiteboard markers and erasers, or maybe they need chips and dice, you know. These things are pretty consistent materials to need for the station or cubes, something like that. I don’t put those in a station bag because I am frequently using them. I don’t, that would take up too much space inside the bag as well. What I do is I have all of my supplies organized and labeled with pictures right by where I keep my centers.
[5:33] And this means that if needed, the kids can get out the materials themselves. They can see them. They can find them. And I encourage that if they’re like, hey, there’s not enough dice. I need another dice. I’ll be like, okay, go get it. You can see where they are. You know where they are. Go get it. And that’s fostering independence and responsibility. But I do set up the stations prepared with, unless I miscounted, with the materials that they will need. So I… We’ll put in the whiteboard markers and erasers. If they need chips, I will use a little cup and scoop out some chips so that it’s not too many chips. Most of those like two color, like red and yellow circles, chips. And I just put a couple cups of chips. So that way, each person that’s at the center can grab a cup and have the chips that they need. These cups, by the way, I didn’t go buy them. They were yogurt cups.
[6:29] Rinsed, cleaned out, and then used. I’ve also inherited a bunch of like the margarine cups. I think they’re margarine. But anyway, you just use like the cups that you have in your recycling and clean them out. There you go. You can have a whole class set in no time. And so I put those in the station bin ready to go. If the kids need dice, I put the dice in the station bin. And my tip for dice, for managing dice, is to give them a tray. So that way that they roll the dice into the tray. It really helps maintain order and it helps prevent the dice from going flying and also more importantly the noise of the dice hitting the table just really is so loud unexpectedly and unnecessarily it’s so loud so the tray helps muffle that sound so I personally like it for that reason as well but also the dice is not flying everywhere the kids aren’t getting on their seats to go pick them up it’s just a great strategy. Now that tray, I didn’t buy. It is a cleaned out frozen dish container, like one of those Lane Cuisines or something. Those little trays. It’s perfect for that. You could even, you could also use like takeout containers, but those are a little too big, I think.
[7:44] The like Lane Cuisine ones are the perfect size. So we’ll just put a stack of those and the dice that they need in the station bin. And voila, the bin is ready for the kids to grab and go, for them to get started on, for them to be independent with. And so that is how I organize my house centers.
[8:01] So I have, I didn’t, also didn’t mention this though. I’ll put out five centers at a time. I have station one, station two, station three, station four, station five, and one game or activity per center. And so I’ll put out station one on table one. And when it’s time to clean up, the kids just put everything back in that bin. And then they put, they match the station one bin with the label I have for station one back on the shelf so they can find it. and it goes in number order. So super easy for them to be independent and responsible at cleaning that up and setting it up and everything. How often do I change out my math centers is a question I get a lot. And for me, I just kind of do it when I notice the kids getting bored, when I notice the kids getting bored with that station, or when the math curriculum said, do this new center with them. Then I change out. I pick a station that I feel like the kids are most bored at or that the kids are, they stopped going to, and I changed that one out. I don’t really have a rhyme or reason. I used to do it more. I used to try doing it like every Monday, changing out the math centers, but that’s a lot of pressure for me on a Monday to get five centers ready to go and teach them all five new centers at one time. Like, it’s just too much. It’s too much for the kids to remember.
[9:22] It was too much for me, so that system did not work for me. I know that some people, like my teammates don’t they don’t like to organize their mass centers the way that i organize mine and that’s fine they organize it by game so like i said there might be multiple times during the year where kids playing a certain game and so they put all of their stations in bins labeled with the game and so then when the you know curriculum says introduce to them toss the chips you can go to the shelf and look for the bin that says toss the chips and then they pull out that game and they’re good to go. That’s great for them. If that’s great for you, that’s awesome. It just did not work for my brain. I did not like it. I liked organizing in bags because I can see it vertically versus the bins take up so much space. That’s just my opinion. And I like having it all ready to go by unit. So that was my thought process.
[10:15] But again, do what works for you. Okay, so now let’s talk about how I organize my literacy centers. And by the way, if you’re curious about like how I handle my math centers or how I handle my literacy centers.
[10:28] I do have previous blog posts, so I’ll put those resources in the show notes down below. But literacy, I do slightly different. So I do like a word study bin, a vocabulary bin, a drawing bin, and the kids are choosing which ones they want to do. So because of that, I organize my extra materials that I’m not using by skill because it corresponds to where they are in learning about phonics. Like if they need to work on letter recognition, I have one activity like I’ll have I’ll have writing the letters of Play-Doh or I’ll do puzzles. Or if they’re working on sight words like to have roll and write activities or a sight word board game or go fish game and so i also use these materials in small groups or with interventions as needed so i have them in shocker a gallon size bag i love my ziploc bags and i just have it by the skill. So I have all of my letter recognition games all together in one bag. I have all of my sight word games and activities in one bag. And so when I know that the kids need to work on that, I pull out the bag and I can easily move over the activity to the center bin or I can easily move it to my small group bin, whatever I need to use it for. And I keep all these like behind my small group.
[11:57] Table because I will often pull them out for a warm-up with a literacy small group or like I said for an intervention group so I just like to have it on hand I don’t like it tucked away like I have the math materials that I’m not using tucked away in a cabinet I like to have these out in the open because kids are in such different spots too that it’s good you never know what skill you’re going to be working on with a group you want to have access to them all but so then like I said I put the activity that I want them to do in the bin like the word work bin the drawing bin the vocabulary bin and then the kids that if they want to work on it they just pull out that bin and bring it to the table or they just get the material that they need and bring that out to the table because it’s can do kind of situation they can pick which one they want to do so because of that I do put a couple different kinds of activities together so in the word work bin I’ll have a roll and write activity.
[12:52] I’ll have like a puzzle or making the letters or some or trick words with Play-Doh or wiki sticks or something. So I just have a or like using letter tiles. I have a couple of different activities available so they can go through the bin and pick the one that they want. If you listen to the Literacy Center podcast, you’ll see that I’ve had many different types of literacy centers over the years. I’ve tried many things and finally came up with a system that I really enjoy, that really works for me. So those are how I manage all the materials involved with centers and stations.
[13:30] And I’d love to know from you what you might want to try, what you like to do. Definitely reach out and let me know. You can use the code word organize to send me a message if you want, or just reach out and tell me what it is that you like to do to organize your centers.
[13:48] And thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then!