Linking, awarding, and managing center rotations more simply!

I'm linking up with Fun For First, because the premise "You Know You're A Teacher When..." is just too fun!

My grandma-in-law is a total sweetheart who loves to collect Box Tops for my class, but her timing on that one was pretty funny.

I was also lucky enough to get the Top 10 blog award from One Teacher's Take, but I didn't pass it along yet. I'm trying to mostly choose blogs that aren't already super-popular (and haven't already gotten this award multiple times!), but I follow over a hundred blogs on Google Reader so I have a lot to choose from!

Here goes:

Smiling in Second Grade- another pretty new teacher, with such a cute blog!



Sparkles, Smiles, and Student Teaching- fresh ideas from a student teacher and camp counselor!



Soaring Through Second- a teacher with funny stories and adorable corgis (that my husband requests get a tag of their own, so that I can show him all the corgi pictures)




Teacher Time Savers- a blog that I can already tell is going to have SO many useful freebies!




The Loco Teacher- an ESOL teacher who teaches various grades and shares GREAT free resources and interactive lessons for them!

the {ART} of Learning- a blogger who I have a strange amount in common with. In a good way!



The Eager Teacher- one of those teachers with a voice that just makes you want to follow her!

Third Grade Thinkers -one of the best blogs I've stumbled across lately. She has SO much to share!



Twirlybird Teaching- an oh-so-cute blog with great ideas and plenty of pictures!

2nd Grade Snapshots- a just-started blog (like mine!) that I can't wait to follow as it grows.


Finally, I want to share a little way I've made my classroom much simpler. I used to rotate centers with little cards. I could differentiate center choices, but most of the time the centers didn't really require it, and it seemed like moving those little cards every time was just not the most efficient way to do things.

So when an old co-teacher gave me a plastic spinner, I decided to give something new a try.

I took the spinner (which was already cute), put colored pieces of paper around it, and stuck a paper plate on the spinning part, labeled with numbers for each group number. I use stars to show which centers have work to turn in by the end of the week, and I used painter's tape (which comes off SO easily) to make sections of the board for the seatwork and center groups (off to the right of the photo). I can easily switch out the colored papers if my centers change.

I'm actually letting kids pick centers now, but at the beginning of the year, it was so awesome to just spin once and have ALL of the groups' centers changed. I've seen other people use a 'wheel' for centers, and honestly, unless you are really differentiating using cards, I think a wheel simplifies things SO much!