Music Centers Ideas for Elementary Music Class
I love using centers in music class! I have been collecting, printing, laminating and cutting for years and finally have enough that I can switch them out and have lots of variety for the students during centers days.
I split the students into groups of 4-5. Students usually rotate centers once every 10-15 minutes. I keep track of which groups have done each center in a pocket chart.
Here are some of the centers I use in my room. Some of them are free resources I found on the internet, others are ones I created and you can purchase at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
Train Rhythms Music Center
This station allows students to compose their own rhythms and then write the rhythms down. The download contains train cars with rhythms for both 3 beats per measure and 4 beats per measure. Students arrange the cars and then write the rhythms they used on the worksheet. This is great practice composing and writing notes. Here’s what this center looks like in my room:
This center is available for purchase at my Teachers Pay Teachers store: Train Music Rhythm Center
Hot Cocoa Music Stations
Hot Cocoa Rhythms-This station is a rhythm practice station. Students put the rhythms in an order that they choose, then play the rhythm on a percussion instrument.
Check out this resource on my Teachers Pay Teachers store: Hot Cocoa Rhythms.
Hot Cocoa Instrument Families-Here’s another Hot Cocoa center. This one is about instrument families. Each instrument family has a printed cocoa mug. The instruments are on printed marshmallows. Students put the instrument marshmallows on the correct family mug. You can take a look at it on my Teachers Pay Teachers store: Hot Cocoa Instrument Families.
Music Money Center
My absolute favorite center is Music Money. I found the idea years ago, and tweaked it to suit my classroom. The Music Money center is a great way to sneak some math into music class too! The students don’t even realize they are practicing adding whole numbers and fractions. The center uses dice, a chart of note values, and printed music money.
Here’s the way the game works. The first student rolls the music dice. They use the chart to figure out the total value of notes and rests rolled. Once they add up the values, they take that amount of music dollars. Then it is the next person’s turn. Whoever has the most money at the end of the time period is the winner.
It’s a pretty easy center to put together. If you are interested in my version of this game, you can purchase the pdf on Teacher Pay Teachers: Music Money Station.
Other Resources
There are lots of great places on the internet to find more ideas about music centers. Here are a few blogs I hae used as a source of inspirations:
Making Music Class Fun 