My 3rd graders start in mid March and end at the end of April. Next year I am thinking of doing recorders all year with them. I do recorders all year long with my 4th and 5th graders. My classes are 45mins and we usual spend about 10-15mins a class period on recorders. 4th grade is the only ones who do Recorder Karate. We spend one or two times a month doing recorders for the full class period. These are the days where students can test for belts. I do centers on these days and one of the centers is with me for testing. If we have extra time on the days we are not doing centers, then I will open it up for testing, but usually we only have time for 4-5 students to test. I use to allow students to come in at lunch to test, but my lunch time has changed and I can no longer allow for testing at lunch time. I like doing it all year long because it allows the students more time for growth. It also nice to spend small segments on the recorder rather
than 45mins every time. My students seem to do better when we only spend a few minutes on the recorder. By the time they get bored we are done with recorders for the day.

Tami Mangusso
Aurora, Colorado