TimerPlanWill this carousel fit the lesson?
A five-station carousel with a two-minute changeover is ten minutes of moving. That is a fifth of an hour, and it is the part that never gets planned.
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How this works
How long a carousel really takes
Station time plus changeover, multiplied by the number of stations — against the length of a lesson.
| Stations | Minutes each | Changeover | Whole rotation | Fits a 60 min lesson? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 10 | 2 | 48 min | Yes, with time to introduce it |
| 5 | 8 | 2 | 50 min | Yes, just |
| 5 | 10 | 2 | 60 min | No — nothing left for setup |
| 6 | 6 | 2 | 48 min | Yes, but each station is short |
| 6 | 8 | 2 | 60 min | No |
Under about six minutes a station, most of the lesson is spent arriving and settling rather than working.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a station be?
Long enough to produce something, which in practice is rarely under five minutes and rarely over twelve. Short stations feel brisk to the teacher and chaotic to the class, because the fixed cost of arriving, reading the task and settling is roughly two minutes wherever you put it.
Should every station be the same length?
It is easier to run if they are, because one timer serves the whole room and the changeover is a single instruction. Different lengths need either a plan on the board or an adult per station, and that is a bigger change than it sounds.
What about a station that needs an adult?
Put it first or last. A supported station in the middle of a rotation means the adult is unavailable to everyone else for the whole lesson; at either end, the rest of the carousel can start or finish without them.