Student Teacher Take-Over

Today began the official "full responsibility" portion of my student teaching experience. I wasn't too worried due to the fact that I had had many opportunities to teach the kids before now. The day went smoothly with only one small hiccup- math stations. I DID NOT realize how much planning and coordinating it took to create a beneficial system to follow for math station rotations. After many, many brainstorms, my mentor teacher and I finally came up with a system that worked for us. The stations made perfect sense to me... but explaining them to the kiddos proved to be a little more difficult. The class had a pretty good grasp on how stations worked, but certain small things kept the stations from being perfect learning opportunities. I learned today that even a well thought out activity may not run how I plan for it to, and when that happens, I will have to think on my toes! I do believe that this is why we - as student teachers- intern the way that we do, because these lessons cannot be taught...they must be experienced! My question to everyone is... how do you set up your math stations? I know there must be TONS of different ways to organize materials, activities, rotation schedules , etc. and I want to know them ALL!! That way I will be ready when it comes time to set up my own :). As always, I welcome your responses!