Reply To: need advice on length of music classes

[nafmeadmin]

When I started at my school, I saw each grade twice a week for 30 min each. For my kids, that is JUST ENOUGH for k-2 to sit through. They get antsy and distracted by each other with much longer. I noticed quickly that the older kids in 4th and 5th grade were craving more time. We would get into a topic and be ready to start an activity or debrief after an activity and time would be cut short. I asked my principal to change their classes to 1 hour/week (giving the teachers the same amount of down time) and giving us a bigger block of time. It works great! 3rd grade is stuck in the middle: 30 min is plenty at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year when we are going through recorders, the teacher is nice enough to give me 45 min.