Bright Ideas Linky: Math Center Bags!

Another month has come and gone, and it is time for another Bright Idea Link Up! Are you ready for some more fabulous ideas from a ton of different bloggers?

This month I am concentrating on little things that I can do to make my life easier during the school year. One thing I did last year that helped out tremendously was to make math station bags.

I do math centers or stations every single day. I have 10 stations in the rotation at a time, and change the stations each month. Changing out the stations is no biggie, but finding the right manipulatives to match each station is something that does me in every. single. time.

I got to thinking, and thought why not put all the manipulatives that students would need for ANY station into ten sets to go with the ten stations? I was feeling pretty much like a genius at this point and dug right in.

 I started with the bags. I found these brightly colored bags at Dollar Tree for, you guessed it, a dollar a piece which was an absolute steal, because they are really sturdy. They have vinyl pockets surrounded with rip-stop style fabric and a good zipper.

Next I filled them up. I took an inventory of what most stations needed which included number cards, dice, (I put one die in die, one six sided, and one ten sided die in each) a dry erase marker, game pieces, and a paperclip to use as a spinner.  

This way students grab their station and any station bag and are ready to work! As a bonus, I discovered that the bag itself could actually be used as a mini dry erase board. I mean really, how much better could this get?

I used these math station bags throughout all of last year and they were awesome! They stood up throughout the year and I have had to replace very minimal amounts of the contents which is much better than what was happening when I changed out the manipulatives along with the stations. 

If you liked this post, please consider following me with Bloglovin', on Facebook, or on Teachers Pay Teachers for more great ideas! 

For more amazing ideas, from fantastic bloggers check out the linky below. Items are listed by topic and grade level to make your search a little easier! 

An InLinkz Link-up