7 Music Room Decorating Tips

It’s beginning to be that time of year again: I am starting to, reluctantly, ease myself into thinking about school again. Are you there, too? One way to prepare for the new year is to start decorating your room. I’ve spent weeks decorating my room before, and I’ve also had an exciting experience (that I never want to repeat) of moving rooms and setting up a new room in a total of 3 hours. Here are some of the things I’ve learned along the way.

Tip #1: Know your fire code

This is a biggie because it varies from state, to city, to district, to school. I see all these wonderful things on Pinterest: things hanging from the ceiling, bulletin board with fabric and triple border, and doors decorated to the max. All of those things are a no-go at my school. We have restrictions on how much paper we can have on the walls, where the paper can be, and NOTHING is allowed on our doors. I learned this the hard way when we changed fire inspectors and I found the new one at my painstakingly decorated door, crumpling up decorations and throwing them away. I was furious! But at the end of the day, even though the policy was a new one I hadn’t known I was breaking, I was guilty of breaking fire code and the door had to stay completely bare. Know what your restrictions are BEFORE you spend your precious time making and hanging decorations/boards.

If you aren't sure what the codes are, check with your building engineer or janitor. It's a good idea to check with them anyway before you do something big like paint furniture or use tape on something in the room. I have friends who didn't consult with their people before they used duct tape on the floor- HUGE mistake. The residue never comes off. Some schools allow you to paint school furniture like shelves or filing cabinets, and some don't. It's always best to check, you have little to lose and being on the building staff's bad side is definitely something to avoid. 

R.I.P. epic and awesome meme door.

Tip #2: Consider functionality vs. aesthetics

There are varying theories on how “cute” a room should be. Some find cute decor necessary to be homey and/or organized, and some find it offensively distracting. Think about where you fall on the spectrum. I am solidly in the middle: everything in my room in functional, but I made sure it looks good too. I color-coordinate everything according to grade and group displays according to musical element, so students know to zoom in on anything that is their color and can zone out any information they don’t need. That helps to counteract the distracting aspect of having stuff around the room. Consider your curriculum and how often you meet with your kids. If you see them for only a short amount of time and they are expected to memorize a lot of vocabulary, visuals of frequently-used concepts could really help your instruction. Room size and wall space can also impact what you do. A huge room could have enough room for a display that is “just for fun” to help the room be inviting to students. But you may want to consider before you wallpaper your room in cute clipart you found on Teachers Pay Teachers, or before you leave your room completely bare: How is this helping my instruction?

An example of my color-coded dynamic display. Cute, but useful!

Tip #3: If you’re going to do something, do it well

I was 100% guilty of sloppy, handwritten decor my first year of teaching. That may have been acceptable if I had great handwriting, but I really don’t. Anchor Charts or a small bit of hand-writing is one thing, but I did entire displays with my wonky writing. Taking the time to create a poster on the computer was totally worth it, because it was legible and will look professional. Especially if you have a large population of at-risk kids, a sloppy room gives the impression that you have no intention to stay. Now if your edges are slightly off center, that’s not a big deal. But certain amounts of polish to your room helps to set your classroom environment, which in turn helps set classroom management.

Tip #4: Post your rules

This is hugely helpful for classroom management. When a kid is making silly choices, a raised eyebrow and a finger pointing to the rules is often enough to quell the behavior. Yay for non-verbal cues!

Make a good choice, kiddo.

Tip # 5: Hiding Places

Sooner or later, a kid will be having a very bad day and will break down in your class. Many, especially kinder kids at the beginning of the year, immediately want to find a hiding place. Look over your set-up and see if you have any. Maybe you don’t want to have any, or maybe you do. (Perhaps you want a hiding place to be a cool-down area, or you want one for a game. Perhaps you want nothing but open space.) But if they are there, make sure you know where they are.

Tip #6: Cool-down Spaces

Related to hiding spaces are cool-down spaces. Have a designated space where kids go if they need a second to re-group. What that looks like is up to you: a desk with a think-sheet, a carpet square outside of the circle or rows where they can still watch, or maybe a chair with a glitter bottle. Sometimes schools will dictate what they want cool-down spaces to look like so they are consistent throughout the building. Whatever your cool-down space looks like, make sure it is clearly labeled and communicated to the students so instruction time isn’t wasted when a student needs to go there.

Tip #7: Materials

Consider how you will get materials to your students quickly. How are your instruments going to be set up? Will certain ones be out all the time? Where will the rest go? I leave my tone bars out at the back of the room in three long rows, and have my non-pitched percussion in bins along one wall. All of my instrument bins are labeled with the instrument name as well as a picture of the instrument. This helps primary and ELL kiddos put away instruments quickly. My instrument bins are also organized by category sound: click, scrape, jingle, rattle, and ring. (I got that idea from Barbara Grenoble, and it is SUPER helpful when getting kids to analyze non-pitched percussion sounds.) 

Most elementary music rooms don’t have desks, so that means writing projects like composition can be a bit of a pain to manage. I love my open room, but when I first started I lost a lot of instruction time to handing out pencils and paper. How are your writing materials stored, and how are they handed out? I have shower caddies from the dollar tree (I love the dollar tree. I love that place so much!) that I use to store any materials like pencils and paper. Everything is sectioned out into groups of 6, so when I am preparing for the next class I can just grab a chunk of paper and plunk it into a caddy. 6 boards go under the caddy because they are too big to fit inside. The caddies are also handy for handing out baggies of manipulatives like rhythm kits or for small non-pitched percussion.

It really helps to be purposeful about setting up your room. Keeping things in mind like décor, functionality, and specific spaces in your room can help your class run smoothly and ultimately improve your instruction.

Have fun setting up the perfect classroom for a great year!

Summer Book Haul #1

One thing I love to do over summer break is visit all the thrift stores in town and sort through their children’s book section. I love having my own classroom library, and one of my biggest goals the past few years has been to add to it. I have a pretty good idea of what the book could be used for as I buy it. (Here’s a post on what I look for in books.) I don’t have complete lessons for these books yet, since I just got them, but I’ll post what they are and my ballpark of what they could be used for, as well as amazon links if you want to check them out.

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, Eric Litwin

I’m kind of shocked I don’t have this one yet. The lesson has definitely made the internet rounds, and there’s a great Youtube video here with an extensive handout linked in the comments. One thing you could add is changing the dynamics or tempo for each color. You could also use it with older students for a lesson on theme and variation.

Over in the Garden, Jennifer Ward

This is a counting book with bugs. Each bug has a different locomotor movement. This book could be used solely for movement, you could add instruments, or you could split the class and do both. Bug finger puppets (or craft sticks with pictures of bugs on them) could be fun, though you would need a lot of them.

Going to Sleep on the Farm, Wendy Cheyette Lewison

This book explores farm animals and how they sleep, so lullabies would be very easy to tie-in.

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? Dr. Seuss

The book calls itself a “book of wonderful noises,” and it definitely delivers on that. Each page is a new sound effect, which is just begging to have those sounds transferred to instruments. I think I know what Kindergarten will be doing for Dr. Suess week!

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything, Linda Williams

Spooky enough for Halloween without actually saying anything about Halloween, this book is an add-on adventure with loads of sound effects. Eventually all the noisy parts following the old lady around make a scarecrow.

Caps for Sale, Esphyr Slobodkina

An oldie but goodie first published in 1940, this book follows a sleepy cap salesman who has a run-in with monkeys. He has 5 different types of hats, and the monkeys love to copy what he does. There are several things you could do with this book. Kids could echo with instruments or voice, be split into cap-groups for improvisation, or learn form using the caps/cap manipulatives. It could easily be adapted for a program as well.

Oh No, George! Chris Haughton

Similar to the Bad Kitty series, this book is a bit more accessible for music because George does one bad thing at a time. There are several repeated phrases, so it would be easy to create a song or two to go with this book.

Dinosaurumpus, Tony Mitton

This book features several dinosaurs movin’ and groovin’ and an obvious refrain that is begging to have a pentatonic melody. Movement could be a focus, as well as singing and playing the refrain.

Too Many Rabbits, Kay Cooper

This is a book of very short stories and poems with hand movements. It would be easy to add a melody to them, or have students add a melody to them. There are several about weather (rain and thunder is particular) that would work well with non-pitched instruments.

I’m Tyrannosaurus, Jean Marzallo

Animal Snackers, Betsy Lewin

 

Both of these books are collections of short poems. I love collecting poem collection whenever I can, because they can be great fun to transfer to drums. You can also have students use them as a base for composition. I like to isolate pitch or rhythm when students first compose so they don’t get overwhelmed, and a given poem is a great way to have students focus on pitch.

I hope you have fun finding the perfect book (or books!) for your kiddos!

Reasons the Dollar Tree is My Friend (Part 2)

Hurrah for summer! With at least a little more time on my hands than usual, it’s a good time to think about classroom crafts and organization. And that, for me, means a trip to the good ol’ Dollar Tree. I decided to take pictures while I was there of things I use in my classroom. It’s amazing how many of my favorite things come from the dollar store! Man, I love Dollar Tree. (I love it so much this isn’t my first post about dollar store loot. See part one here.)

  

 

Tubs, baskets, and containers

I love these things! This is, in my opinion, my favorite category of things at the Dollar Tree. I see no reason to pay $5 for a simple plastic basket when there are great ones for a buck! There are so many things to organize in a classroom, and so many options to help you get it done. I like using the larger tubs with lids to hold stations. Mid-size tubs are used to store manipulatives so I can find them easily, and small tubs are used to store a small amount of manipulatives (like rhythm dice or flash cards) within a station tub. I used to use plastic bags for everything, but kids tend to destroy them quickly if they are in a station. Baskets are great for use in a classroom library, and shower caddies are handy for storing materials for group work. All of my non-pitched percussion instruments are stored in baskets from Dollar Tree, as well.

Splash Ring

Summer is the best time to buy them, and they make great drums.

Foam Counting Blocks

Music dice are a great summer craft project. I have rhythm dice for every grade, as well as pentatonic dice (do is on there twice). They are great for chance music, identification games, and stations. Rhythm dice are featured in this post about rhythm manipulatives, if you would like more ideas.

Reusable Dry Erase Pockets

Thicker than plastic sleeves, these last longer and are built to better withstand the abuse of being in the hands of a 7-year-old. If your copy budget is stretched thin, these can come in very handy.

Puppets

I love dollar store puppets because I then feel no panic about letting kids lead singing games that involve them. They love the opportunity to use the puppet, so I usually let the child have a turn after they solo sing. Even my shy kiddos are more likely to open up if they get to walk around with a lion on their hand afterwards.

Magnetic Classroom Spinner

I’ve seen all these fancy tempo and dynamic spinners on Pinterest that take skills and time to make or money to buy… write a simple one on your magnetic whiteboard, add one of these babies and BOOM. Instant spinner.

Self-stick Flags

I like to color code mine in my favorite resources so I can easily find primary and intermediate songs. It’s less messy than the “use a ripped-up post-it” method I used to favor.

Craft Sticks

Color code them for a quick multiple response strategy (“If you hear a largo tempo put up a blue stick, if you hear an allegro tempo put up a green stick,” etc.) or use them as representative notation for rhythm, as seen here.

Foam Stickers

These things are GOLD. Easy and simple rewards that go a long way!

Wands

Wands are another great manipulative for solo singing, and one that can be customized to fit the activity. One of the first Kinder solo singing exercises we do is to sing our wishes to a wishing wand. It’s a challenge to find one that isn’t too girly. I might have to go back and get the dinosaur one, it cracked me up!

Pinwheels

When teaching recorder, I give kids a pinwheel and tell them to blow. They go crazy. Then we work on slowing down the air. The pinwheel is a good visual, and as a bonus it doesn’t squeak!

That leads to the last must-have item from the Dollar Tree…

Just kidding. Those recorders are TERRIBLE. The jump ropes can be good for vocal exploration, though. Just lay them on the floor and have kids follow the contour with their voice. I’ve also paired that activity with the book The Squiggle. 

Have fun at the dollar store!

Swim Ring Sanity-Saver

It is almost summer, and you can feel it in the air. Not the outside air, since the weather is crazy (It snowed yesterday! No joke!) but the air in the school is thick with kids-gone-cray-cray. Between assemblies, field-trips, indoor field day, and graduations I’ll see less than half my classes this week. Those I do see will be out of their minds with anticipation for summer. Plus, we’ve had indoor recess every day for the past two weeks. What the heck do you do with kids this time of year?

Two words, my friends: swim rings.

Yup. You heard me. No, I’m not telling you to take a personal day and go to a beach. Stop buying that plane ticket to the Caribbean, because can use swim rings as drums. Let that sink in for a bit, folks.

I picked up these swim rings at the Dollar Tree. (Have I mentioned that I love that place? Oh wait, I wrote a whole post about it.) The same ones at Walmart were $3.88, so it’s a good deal. Tire swim rings = coolest thing ever to a 4^th grade boy. I have small yellow rings and big blue rings as well. We use one mallet (you could use two if you have enough) to play the ring, and one hand to steady the ring so it doesn’t go flying.

These rings are a great instrument for pretty much any drum activity, with an added bonus of being interesting and new. I like having three colors, because it makes drum circle pieces a cinch.

Since it’s the end of the year and I don’t have a lot of time to prefect a complicated drum ensemble piece, I decided to keep it simple and play poetry on our swim rings.

For primary kiddos, we read Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae. Get it from Amazon here. We read all the poems, students chose their favorite, and then we wrote out the rhythm. Most of them are simple enough that quarter/eighth notes work fine. Once we had the rhythm down, we went to swim rings and played the poem.

My 5^th graders are losing their minds. They are a tough group anyway, but with two days left they’ve gone bonkers. (The weather doesn’t help... Snow. In. May. What?!) 4^th and 3^rd graders aren’t much better in the sanity department. So to combat the insanity, we read Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee. Get it from Amazon here. Once we had the poem down, students created an ostinato to go with. Students then transferred to swim rings, and a few students on the smaller rings performed the ostinato. It was fun to experiment and see what they came up with. One class was obsessed with saying “BOOM!” when they got something right, so we made that our ostinato. Another class opted to do a three-part round, so we had the tires go first, followed by the blues, followed by the yellows.

These swim rings are definitely going into my tool box as an end-of-the-year lifesaver. 

Treble Clef Story Project

Ah, the treble clef. It is an absolutely essential skill to learn, but students tend to struggle with it simple because it takes so much repetition to learn. There’s only so many times you can run through flash cards before you start getting bored. (Let’s be clear here, I get bored faster than the kids do!) 

The good news is, there are lots of resources to make learning the treble clef fun. I used this project to wrap up a treble clef unit for 3^rd grade, though you could easily use it for another grade as well.

To learn the treble clef, we used a lot of technology. Staff Wars is a staple in my classroom when learning notes, and the students love it. Star Wars + blowing stuff up = great opportunity for learning! No, really. The kids love it! We also created our own silly mnemonic device sentences to help remember the notes. My favorite example this year from that activity was, “Evil Goblins Buy Dirty Food”.

Once individual note identification became comfortable, students had daily puzzle challenges using Treble Clef Words at classics for kids and eventually the more advanced Word Warrior games. These games had students spell out a word using notes on the treble clef staff. Word Warrior also lets you blow stuff up, which is a proven recipe for success.

For the project, students created a short story (5-10 sentences) that contained at least 5 treble clef words. For the final product, students wrote the words on the treble clef within their story. Students brainstormed a list of several words that only use the musical alphabet, A-G. We then organized them into small, medium, and long words. Students could self-differentiate based on how comfortable they were. 

We started with a frame of what the story would be, using the frame: (Character) is (Doing Something) (Somewhere). I gave them a starter list with super-heroes making breakfast or fighting evil in an airport or a farm, but students were free to use anything that was school appropriate.

Here is an example of a rough draft. The story frame is at the top.

Next, students looked at the musical alphabet words and chose 5 that would be easy to fit in their story. For instance, if your story frame was “Spongebob making breakfast under the sea,” it would make sense to use the word “egg.” Students wrote those words out on the treble clef staff, with each word getting its own staff. I had them write out quarter notes, but you could also use whole notes so you don’t have to worry about stems going up or down.

Treble clef word rough-draft

Students created a rough draft using plain words with normal letters. They put a box around each treble clef word, so they would know to write them out on the treble clef when they did the final copy.

Final draft for the same student

Students then created their final copy, and decorated it if they had time. (One thing I would do differently next time: only provide light colors. Some of my kids colored with dark colors and then got sad when their story was hard to read.) We then projected them on the board and solved several of the treble clef stories. Students had a blast solving the stories of other students!

Here are a few of my favorites:

 

Check out that spider-man!

This story cracked me up!

"The reason he eats cabbage is to be green."

My kids really loved this project. I would like to do something similar with an older grade next year, but have them  perform their stories and play the notes on tone bars. It's a great project though, and I hope you find it useful for your students!

Carnival Of the Animals: Part 1

Ah, spring! The weather gets gorgeous, life gets very busy, and students get antsy. I like to do a lot of movement lessons to counteract the craziness. Carnival of the Animals is perfect for this, and is a great way to review musical opposites and steady beat. Here’s what I do for the first few movements with my kiddos.

Lion listening map

Lion/Introduction

Focus: Steady beat                                          Prop: Hands, then scarves

Questions: How does a lion move? How would a lion keep a steady beat? When is there a “roar” in the music? How do you know?

For the introduction, students do “jazz hands” to show the piano line (and you try not to giggle at 25 5-year-olds doing jazz hands), then move their hands up and down in smooth motions for the strings. We don’t focus on this part as much, but the kids love to do it when we perform the Lion once we have the movements down.

For Lion, we start by finding the roar in the music. We add in an “I’m so proud of my roar” pose after each roar, and then find the steady beat. I like to have the kids move to a half note pulse so they have a little time to make their movements interesting. We talk about how lions move, and practice moving our shoulders and arms to make our lion walk more interesting. Students also explore levels, while moving and during the roar. Once students have practiced the dance in their own space, we move in a circle. Before each roar, a leader (teacher or later a student) calls out if the roar will face out, in, or up. This looks so cool! Once students are comfortable, we add in scarves.

Hens and Roosters

Focus: Short and long sounds             Prop: Hands, then scarves

Questions: Are most of the sounds long or short? When do you hear long sounds? When do you hear short sounds?

This movement is pretty simple: students “peck” towards the floor with hand-beaks during the short sounds, and freeze during the long note of the clarinet solo. (They could also freeze during the longer violin notes, but since there’s short notes as well I let them choose. AKA they keep going fast.) Once students are familiar and comfortable with the music, we upgrade our beaks to scarves. If students show they can be safe and not run, they move around the room. Students who run or are unsafe have to peck food from the chicken coop, a carpet square off to the side. With my visual, a student leader moves the star to show when students are moving and when they are frozen.

Donkey

Focus: Higher and lower                                 Prop: Mini animals, scarves

Questions: Does the melody stay on one note for very long? If the melody gets higher, does it start high or low? If the melody gets lower, does it start high or low?

This movement is great for higher and lower. After an initial listen, students draw an imaginary ladder on the floor. Depending on the class or grade, I sometimes give them paper glockenspiels instead. Students then take a mini animal (mine are from oriental trading) and have them move up and down the ladder depending on if the sound gets higher or lower. A student leader moves the donkey within the visual. We then move on to scarves, moving in the air instead of on the floor.

Tortoises

Focus: Fast and Slow, AB                                 Prop: Tinsel Wands

Questions: Is this music fast or slow? How are Tortoises and the Can-can similar and how are they different? The composer created Tortoises to be a musical joke. Why is it funny?

Man, I love this piece! We listen to the Can-Can first, since it was written first. Then we listen to the A section and compare the two. The piece is AB form, so that can also be a focus. The movement for the A section is two small circles and one larger, slower circle. That movement repeats the entire section. For the B section, students slowly trace geometric shapes. (This is an easy cross-curricular opportunity with art and math!) If students are really on the ball, I’ll let them trace create their own organic shapes. We use tinsel wands, but scarves can work as well.

Scarf Folding

I always have students fold their scarves before they put them away. We use the song below, though you could easily use another listening example as you fold.