My Music Room Set-Up

Good morning everyone! Today I am linking up again with Aileen Miracle at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room for her linky party on music room set-up. Click below to go to her original post (after you've finished reading mine of course). My first day with students isn't until the 25th, but teachers report on the 15th for Professional Development and meetings. We do get some time to work on our rooms and plan, but it's never enough. I've been working through the week, and will probably update my post several times along the way. If you want to be notified of updates, follow me on Facebook or Twitter! There are links on the right side of the blog.

First, a couple of "before" pictures. I'm very fortunate to not have to take every little thing down every summer. 

This is the view from my classroom door, where students enter.

... And the view from the stage door. I love that my classroom is directly behind our stage.

This is a panorama from the back of my classroom.

... And from the front.

We don't have a school-wide theme, so I have a lot of freedom to do what I want with my classroom. After a lot of consideration, I decided to go with a Superhero theme!  I thought this would appeal to students of all ages!

This is my Solfa City bulletin board and group supplies underneath. I already had the shelves, but you can buy similar ones at Walmart (my local Walmart had them for $16). The containers are from Dollar Tree (I love that store!)  I'll blog more about the supply containers and how I'm using them later.

This bulletin board is from Teachers Pay Teachers. It's part of Jamie Parker's Superhero Music Class Decor Set. I may redo the backdrop. I used a blue tablecloth, but as you can see, my old bulletin board for Solfa Street is still kind of visible in the background (in case I go back to it next year). I'm going to add some flying superhero characters to this board yet to fill some of the empty space.

This set acts as my word wall. It is from Cori Bloom at Rhythm & Bloom and is called 'What to Listen for in Music.' I still have a few pieces left to put up, but love how it fits on these cabinets. We are in the process of replacing old Orff instruments, and were told by our Fine Arts Coordinator to either send the old ones to surplus or use them for decorating.

This is the same word wall after some rearranging and adding Cori's updates from the summer.  The next pictures are some close-ups of the different sections and how I have them organized.

 

For this last picture, I used several copies of the blank sheet Cori includes to put all of my rhythms for K-5, in the order we teach them. This will make a great reference for students.

(Picture updated 8/20/14 with higher quality) My classroom has NO magnetic surfaces! But we are provided with these magnetic solfa hand signs and label dots. The hearts are magnetic also, and are small enough I can use them alongside the solfa. I got this oil drip pan at Walmart and mounted it using Command Strips. The Solfa Superheroes posters are from Aileen Miracle's TPT store (they're free!).

In this corner, we have a pocket chart set from Lakeshore Learning. Each color represents a grade level and will have the learning targets for that grade level posted.  I have three different sets of learning targets, two from Sweet Sounds - K-2 and 3-5 (to have sets based on TEKS), Jamie Parker, and Aileen Miracle.

(Pictures updated 8/20/14 with higher quality) Keeping with the Superhero theme, my instrument family posters are labeled using a Superhero Alphabet from Three Busy Besties. I created the green and purple one using a background from them and bubble from Krista Wallden. The Percussion label is hard to read, I couldn't find the right font, so I may keep trying and remake that one also.

(Picture updated 8/20/14 with higher quality) MUSIC Rules are from Amy Abbott's We're Musicians, What's Your Superpower? classroom decor bundle. The poster at the bottom says 'Before you speak, think...'  I'm going to change out the Marzano scale on the right. The current scale is from Stomp'nChat (EDIT - 8/17 - found the TPT seller for the Marzano scale)

My desk. I covered the back with a tablecloth. The shelf and brackets are from IKEA and cost a total of $3.00. The black and white bins and the towel racks are also from IKEA in the kitchen section. One of my personal goals for this year is to keep my desk cleared off, so hopefully these organizers will help.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my classroom! I'll keep posting as I finish adding the final touches throughout the next week or so.