Stations in the Middle School Math Classroom

When you hear the term “Math Stations” you probably immediately think of an elementary school classroom where children work together with colorful manipulative and laminated stations. That’s not how stations should be perceived all the time!

When I first started using stations in my classroom it was out of a desperate need to get my students up and moving and working cooperatively. There are many ways stations can be used in a secondary math classroom.

First though, let’s talk about storage. Since many resources are digital these days, it’s easy to get in the habit of not actually keeping hard copies of things. It is very important to keep stations on hand because they can be used in so many ways.

I like to store stations in plastic notebook sleeves and often use one inch binder ringsto keep pieces together. Plastic notebook sleeves keep everything together safely in a way that can easily be snapped back into a binder. Folders are great, but it’s easy for papers and station cards to slide out!

*Spread out the station cards around the room and include a hint card if you choose (if included). Students walk around with the student response sheet and work together in small groups to complete each station. Many stations (like the ones pictured under this list) provide a lot of information on the individual station cards, allowing you to copy them onto card stock to make them sturdy!

*If space is an issue, seat students together in small groups. Give students a specific amount of time to work on a specific station within their group. When time is up, one group member hands their station to the next group. This continues until all stations make the rounds.

*Shorter stations can be kept together for those times when your students are finished early and need something constructive to do. Keeping them in a notebook sleeve will allow your students to just grab what they want.

*Some stations (like the financial literacy ones pictured above) require students to write on the pages and require a good amount of work per station. Students can be given the pack of stations at the beginning of the week and work through it during the week as homework.

*Larger station activities can also be separated and given one station at a time to a pair of students. Once completed, a pair will join up with another pair who had the same station to discuss and compare answers.