Centers: My first attempt

On the oh, so lovely Pinterest I have seen a lot of music teachers doing "Centers." I loved the idea but it was never possible for me the last two years because I only saw each class for 25 minutes. This year I see them less often, but for 40 minutes. I've went around and around with myself on how I can make centers work in my room. I tried it for the first time today and I think it went very well! Here was my time frame with 3 centers.

5 minutes: Explaining the center and drawing a stick to choose center
10 minutes: 1st Rotation
10 minutes: 2nd rotation
10 minutes: 3rd rotation
5 minutes: clean up and line up
- I used my lovely slide whistle to signal transition time!

I did it with 5th grade because we are reviewing Treble Clef note names before we start Recorder Karate (if you don't know this curriculum you should DEFINITELY check it out! I love it!)

My center were simple:

Center 1: Treble Clef Note Names with Dice
1: Find the A on the treble clef
2: Find the B on the treble clef
3: Find the C's on the treble clef
4: Find the D's on the treble clef
5: Find the E's and F's on the treble clef
6: Find the G's on the treble clef

Center 2: the Name that Note iPod app: we have a school set of iPod touches that I love to find great apps for!

Center 3: Treble clef Flashcards: Pair off into 2's and time each other (I borrowed stop watches from the PE teachers) If they got below 30 seconds they got a prize from my prize bowl!

The kids really enjoyed it and I will definitely do it again.
A few reflections:
*10 minutes is probably a little long I could take it up to 4 centers and go for 7 1/2  minutes.
*Try to find some centers that you can assess with- they have to have an ending product!
*They love it when they get something for doing a good job! :)