I was so excited when I saw this t-shirt online one day on facebook and I couldn't believe it wasn't a scam! My students were so cute reading it today - one little girl said, "You are a superhero, Mrs. Jones! A musical one!" That made my day.
So here are some pictures of my classroom - once referred to as "Willy Wonka's Candy Land" by a former teacher at my school! LOL!
A view of my room and my B-E-A-UTIFUL carpet!
I hoped for a circle carpet for years and suddenly came across this one and it is perfect!
There are 24 spots on the carpet which works well for most of my classes...the classes that have 25 kids sit around the piano keys - it's tight, but we make it work.
"Listening Lane"
Here are pictures of my "Street Signs" from "Music Land."
Above is a pic of the part of my room I call "Listening Lane."
Introducing..."Singing Snoopy!"
Ah yes...another very important part of my classroom
My Music Room Mascot:
The kids love him so much, I have received, not one, not two,
but 3 different "dog houses" handmade by students.
Um kids, I'm running out of room and Snoopy has more houses than most people!
If I could wish for something in my music room, it would be storage. I have some cabinets, but not many and they're very small. I miss having a closet very much. So you'll see that all around the music room, I've improvised by using a lot of storage containers and drawers. And yes, all the Target employees know me by name! LOL. But - it's worth it to feel organized.
Here's a picture of the adorable solfege character posters I decorated each cabinet with to jazz them up a bit. My friend dubbed these little characters the "Musical M&Ms" LOL!
I LOVE your room! Tell me more about your listening lane!
ReplyDeleteHi Lindsay!
DeleteThat made me so happy!!! Thank you SO much!!! I have my room divided up into musical "places." We travel to many during my lessons depending on the activity. "Listening Lane" is for listening lessons (like Carnival of the Animals), active listening (I call it "Music Detectives") or musical stories for "Mallet Madness" (Artie Almeida's program is amazing!).
I have 5 main places in my room with a street sign for each:
1) Singing Street
2) Listening Lane
3) Rhythm Road
4) Dynamic Drive
5) Composer Court
I was SOOO happy when my father-in-law agreed to make me wooden signs which I had fun painting. (I previously had made some out of just green posterboard and used stencils for the lettering - which worked fine, but these are awesome!) I decorate the posts for different holidays. I am proud to say that this set-up is super for classroom management and transitions - sometimes it's perfect for even giving the students a much needed movement break to travel somewhere else in the music room. After the routines are set at the beginning of the year, I just say something as simple as, "As you travel to singing street, try to figure out the song I'm humming and raise your hand if you know it." And.....ta dah! There they are! Listening intentently and moving where I need them next. I have been meaning to find more pics and add detailed description to the page - thank you for your comment and for asking! I will keep working on this part in more detail! :) Yay for elementary music teachers!!! Blogging is so much fun!
Stay-"Tuned,"
Tina
I have been teaching music for 25 years and I never even thought of having music "places". Sure wish I had. I think it's a great idea and since I haven't set my room up for this year yet, I may have to rethink things a bit to make it work. LOVE this idea!
ReplyDeleteHi Debbie!!!
ReplyDeleteYour comment meant so much to me! Thank you so very much for the compliment about my "places" in the music room. It honestly has been one of the best ideas I've ever had and helps me plan my lessons, too! Please let me know how it goes if you give it a go! I'd love to hear about it and see pictures. You could even just use posterboard to make "Street Signs" to divide up your space for musical places. Thanks again for making my day and check back soon to see more pictures of my room this year as I set up again!
"Sing-cerely," Tina