Retro Groovy Classroom Tour

I am looking forward to have the grooviest year ever!  This year I decided to embrace the cool, retro vibe that is appearing in fashion, home furnishings and more.  I hope you'll enjoy this peek of my classroom.

My desk is in the front corner of my room.  It holds every pen or pencil known to man and the mixer box for my classroom speakers.  I play music through my computer but it is set up to quickly play from my phone if I need to.

This wall contains my light up treble staff and the board where I'll post my student objectives for the week.  I am in the smallest room I've taught in and storage is limited for instruments.  On this board I have the descriptors for our grading scale. We use standards based grading and I ask students to check where they are with our learning goals for the day and show me by raising fingers to go with the scale below.  

The chicken's name is HENnifer Lopez.  She is sometimes used as a reward.

 

This light up treble staff display is one of my favorite things.  You can learn how to make your own HERE.  The butterflies are sitting on magnetic shelves.  As the school year goes on, I plan to display books that we are reading or that connect with a subject we are learning about.

I painted this rocking chair a few years ago and my students love it. Actually teachers and staff members love it too.  When they come in to talk they often ending up rocking and talking!  The light up mushrooms don't heat up and I love the way they look.  

This corner is used mostly for storage.  On the shelves in front and behind the chairs is where I store my Orff instruments.  I really only use the chairs second semester but we don't have a place to store them until then.  

The Boomwhackers are stored in plastic bag storage containers from IKEA.  I have Boomwhackers in each container.

I use my cabinet doors for extra display area.  When we are studying instrument families or working in stations, I utilize this area as a reference for students.  You can take a closer look at these instrument family posters HERE.

My media cart holds a classroom set of iPads.  On top there are groovy containers for Kleenex, hand sanitizer and spray and a stack of blank paper.  The cart is near my classroom door so that students can put their iPads up on their way out the door.  The cute mushrooms are from Schoolgirl Style.  

This is the back of the room that displays some bulletin boards that I will leave up all year.  On the shelves my library is sorted by categories.  You can read about this organizational system and download some files to get you started by reading more about it in Organizing Books in Your Music Library.  

  

The pillows are used during workstation time.  Students love grabbing  one and sitting on it or laying on it during reading time

You can take a closer look at more of the files I used in my retro groovy classroom here.  I hope you have the best school year ever!

Staying Organized in the Music Room: Three of My Favorite Things

With a busy teaching schedule, after school commitments and family life, staying organized is a must.  In my classroom I am often preparing for a concert with one grade (sometimes two different concerts!) as well as teaching my curriculum.  With hundreds of students a week, it can be overwhelming keeping everything organized.  Here are few of my favorite things for keeping my sanity in the music classroom.

1.  Playlists for Everything

This may seem like an obvious one, but keeping a playlist for each class or grade level can be super handy.  I also make playlists for concert songs, seasons and holidays, movement activities, scarf activities and more.  These playlists are organized in playlist folders.  I use iTunes for the most part, but also organize music on other streaming platforms too.

In iTunes go to File, New and select Playlist or Playlist Folder to get started.  You can create the folder and then drag any existing playlists to it and drop them in.  Here's a quick look at mine.   Notice the playlists and folders on the left.

2.  Category Boxes

I have several magazine boxes that sit on the shelf behind my desk.  I call them my category boxes.  They hold books, CDs, manipulative, folders, IEPs, classroom forms (office referrals, etc...), tidbits of inspiration, resources and more.  All of these things don't fit on a shelf or in a folder neatly as they are different shapes and sizes.  The category boxes collect all of these items and group them by topic.  

Some of my categories are ukulele resources, choir, classroom forms, song books, and seasonal and holidays.  Two of my most used boxes are the ones marked "File Me" (where I stash things that I need to file out of sight) and "Great Ideas" which is a place to put some great ideas of activities I want to try or centers and manipulative I want to make.

3.  Seating Charts that Serve Double Duty

Teaching every student in the school makes seating charts a necessity for me.  I also use them to record assessments, to note learners that need accommodations, to note behaviors until I can record them more formally, and of course to take attendance!  Read more about my seating chart in my blog post, Music Assessments with Seating Charts.

Note:  This looks real, but the names and data are fiction.

I hope you'll try one of my favorite ways to stay organized in the music room this year.  Let me know some of your favorite ones here or on Facebook.

Boomwhacker Storage Ideas

My students love Boomwhackers and so do I!  Like most of you when I first got mine (many years ago!) I put them all in a bucket and then in a big rope handled tub when my collection grew.  This caused a bit of confusion and chaos when I had students get a specific tube out of the tub.  In this post I'll share some of my favorite ways to store Boomwhackers.  Links in this post are not affiliate links.

My first attempt at organized Boomwhacker storage was to recycle plastic coffee cans.  I spray painted them, added labels and sorted the Boomwhackers by pitch.  This worked great on my instrument shelf near the window.  I loved the way they looked.  I think if I try this again that I might try painting the cans to match the Boomwhacker colors.  That would be a little bit more of an investment, but I bet it would look great!

Read this blog post about how I made this storage and download some free labels for your classroom.

In my current classroom I don't have much space for horizontal storage.  What I do have a lot of is wall space!  I purchased these plastic bag storage containers from IKEA and attached them to the wall under my white board.  

They fit well and look great!  I may add labels to them at a later date, but right now I like the way they look without labels.  They are easy for the students to access and are in a great place for a Boomwhacker workstation.

Christine Skog at Elementary Etudes used over the door shoe organizers to create an inexpensive and beautiful display.  Check out her tutorial HERE to see how to make your own.

Jena Hudson at Sew Much Music used some available wall space to create a beautiful and functional way to store Boomwhackers.  Her secret?  Velcro!  Check out this post to learn more. 

  

I've always thought that these crates or an empty wine box would also make great storage options for Boomwhackers.  I haven't tried them yet, but I think they have potential!

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Assessment in Music Class -What Do You Hear?

Can I confess something to you?  I have no idea how any of my elementary or junior high teachers came up with a grade for me.  Not a single one.  Did they just "give" me a grade?  Did I do something to earn it?  Was there every any real assessment?  I don't think so.  I think that I got an A because I was a good kid that did what I was told.  Of course, that must mean that kids that didn't do that would have received a different grade.  Is that crazy?  Have you been guilty of that?

I guess that is one of the reasons that assessment has been so important to me.  I've created hundreds of rubrics, sat through dozens of assessment workshops for math and reading teachers trying to glean everything I could and challenged other music teachers to show me how they plan for authentic assessment.  I've learned that there is a wide variety of strategies for grading or assessing students in music class.  I've seen elaborate data tables and heard others say "I just give them an S, no matter what."  Whaaaat?  I've tried to find a balance based on how often I see my students and what I want them to be able to do when they leave my classroom.

Today I'm going to share with you one of my favorite tools for assessing rhythm skills.  I call it ear training, but it isn't exactly what I remember doing for my Ear Training classes in college.  I use these assessments most often with 3rd through 6th grades but they could be adapted for use with younger and older students.  When I taught high school band I used this type of assessment all of the time.

Check out this video to see how I use my What Do You Hear set of worksheets.  You can download them HERE if you are interested in trying them out in your classroom.

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Farmhouse Music Room Tour

I am so excited to share my classroom with you!  I went with a farmhouse theme and incorporated multiple wooden backgrounds, farm animals on posters, fruit and veggie cushions and lots of metal accents.  As an ambassador for Creative Teaching Press, I've also used TONS of products from the bold and bright series.  Black and white patterns mixed with rainbow themes have always been my favorite!  I'll link to as many things as I can if you would like to replicate any of the looks in your classroom!

On the outside of my classroom door I used some paper plates that had a wood finish.  I picked them up at Walmart last year as they were closing out some of their fall merchandise.  I used these letters and attached them to the plates with tape.  I taped the plates to a long piece of ribbon before hanging it on my door.  The burlap canvas below contains a greeting for all of my students.

Classroom View- The Front 

 I created some large paper flowers using various tutorials that I found on YouTube.  The front of the room is what the students will see the majority of their time so I want it to be bright, colorful and inviting.  Music Gives You Skills to Crow About bulletin board can be downloaded HERE.  I've dressed it up with this black and white border and this rainbow scalloped border.

I store small instruments, scarves, tennis balls, flashlights and other movement props at the front of the room.  I do this so that they are accessible but they are not easy for students to walk by and touch. 

Yep.  That's my sub tub!  I'll try to talk about it in another post.

This bulletin board features the cool wooden backdrop paper (available at Michael's) and metal file holders and letters (Hobby Lobby).  The big clip is from a set of Bold and Bright Clip It cut outs from Creative Teaching Press.  The black polka dot border and the colorful spots border are also from CTP.  I'll use this space to post flyers, pictures and other reminders and mementos from the year.

I was fortunate to grab some storage containers (Target) and a rolling cart (Michael's) on sale and have organized some of the things I kept in or on my desk in them.  The rolling cart has paper, file folders, sheet protectors, etc... and the other containers have some books and resources that I use often.  The metal contain at the bottom has markers sorted by color.  We don't use markers that often in class, but I like how pretty they look when they are organized.

These are flower pots that I painted years ago.  They still kind of go with my classroom theme so they are out again this year.  I used a paint pen to create the keyboard design around the top.

Classroom View-The Side Walls

This rainbow scalloped border is the same as I used on the front bulletin board as is the black and white striped border.  The posters are the Music Symbols Farmhouse Theme available in my TpT store.  They come in several colors, but I chose white because I have a LOT going on in my room already.

The canvas pictures above were created by my daughter and I.  You can see how we did it in THIS blogpost.  The Listen, Sing, Play posters are from a set that I have in my store.  You can download it HERE.  I also have one for "Move" but I've found that I don't refer to it very often so I left it out this year.

The piano has been glammed up a little this year.  In the background you can see my steady beat swords.  Find out how I use them in this blog post: Steady Beat Swords.  The black poofy flowers were from Dollar Tree.  Although I like the way they look, they were quite a pain to poof!  The flat flowers are BW Designer Flower Cut Outs.

I use my cabinet doors as display areas too.  I use packing tape to secure them and group posters by topic.  The tempo posters and ensemble posters are included in my Farmhouse Music Decor Bundle and are also available individually.  I love the pop of color and interest they give to a plain, ole cabinet door.

I usually don't put up instrument posters as my 3rd graders spend a good portion of the year learning their names, characteristics and instrument families and we take frequent quizzes on them.  I designed this set to look like a word wall and I love that it doesn't take up too much space.  You can download it HERE.

Classroom View-The Back Wall

This is the part of my classroom that I look at the most.  It also houses some instruments and is where we line up to head into the hall.

I've sectioned off one large bulletin board to create three smaller area to post displays.  Let's Read MOOsic is one that will be up most of the year.  The treble staff display was designed to coordinate with the rest of my farmhouse style music decor but could really work with many different themes.

I'm so excited to start teaching ukulele this year!  I created an inexpensive storage area for this with an expandable shoe rack.  I padded the bars with pool noodles and added sticker numbers on each of the ukes.  I used Bold and Bright Student Numbers to label the shelves so that students will know exactly where to return their ukuleles.

This reminder is displayed around my clock.  I always want my classroom to be a joyful place and love having this to look at all day!  You can download this freebie HERE and post a reminder in your classroom too.

We are required to have students sign out of our classroom if they leave to go to the restroom, office or nurse.  This year I have set up the sign out area near the door with a cute chalkboard, a metal bucket filled with chalk and a few metal accents (Hobby Lobby).  I love the way it turned out!

During workstation rotations, I've been implementing various seating options.  This year students can choose from these cool cushions and pillows.  The log pillows are from Five Below and the fruit and vegetable cushions are from various sellers on Amazon.

More poofs.  Did I mention what a pain they were?   On the right side of the picture you can see my magnetic set of Note Knacks.  They are AWESOME!  You can order these bad boys from Rhythm Band Instruments here:  Note Knacks Magnet Set

Do you know David Row from Make Moments Matter?  Well, he's amazing and I absolutely LOVE this character ed bulletin board designed for the music classroom.  It's called Moral Focus in Famous Musicians and is available in his store.  It's a huge set (I'm only displaying part of it) and could be used in a smaller space and changed every month to match your character word of the month.  The cool thumbtack borders can be purchased HERE.

I LOVE my Song of the Month display this year!  I used the month signs from the CTP Bold and Bright Calendar set.  Then I used letters and letter stickers from the same line to create the title.  The sticky note border and sticky note cut outs tie it all together.  Each month I will write the song of the month on the sticky note cut out.  You can read more about how I do songs of the month in my classroom in this blog post:  Songs of the Month.

The little buckets on the shelf hold pencils and erasers.  The wooden container on the shelf holds my crayon boxes.  I use travel soap boxes for this.  You can see a closer view of them in THIS blog post.

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