Back to School - Music Room Tour - 2014

 

  When you get to share a space with your favorite co-teacher, it's important to create a space where both folks can work easily, because it's a place you will spend a lot of time in throughout the year. Everything should have a place.    When you want to decorate and organize on the cheap there are a few tips that will help. 

1.  Be neat!  - Being neat is FREE! Did you know that turning magazine holders so that the high side faces looks neater even if you are like me and not particularly organized?  Before we changed anything our office environment improved tremendously just because we turned the magazine holders around to cover the mess.  Then over the summer we had a chance to organize things a little and it's improved!

2. If you are looking for cheap magazine holders, they aren't ghosts, they exist!  I got some magazine holders from IKEA!  You can't beat the price!

 

 

 

 

3.  Good wrapping paper!  I found some wrapping paper on sale at the container store. This paper is wonderful! Check it out HERE!

4.  Colorful and patterned Scotch Expressions (masking tape) .  Use this sparingly on surfaces that won't be hurt by the sticky side.... Masking tape is really much better for this than duct tape because it is easy to remove and as long as you are in a climate controlled environment it won't leave a residue.  The best selection is at Office Depot. Two rolls took care of ALL of the decorating that I did.

 Here is the product info for the masking tape I used

Blue Quatrefoil 3437-P9 00-051141-97688-4


 Here is a multimedia catalog for all the various types of tape made by Scotch.

5.  When you get ready to hang things on a wall that you don't own, use command hooks!!!  The best selection is at Joann, but not online, you'll want to go to the store.  

 

Here is my current favorite: HERE! 

 

 

 

 

 

Music Teacher Hack - How to save your Giant BIG BOOKS with one easy trick!

As I was setting up my classroom I was looking for a place to store my MASIVE BIG BOOKS!  I found a good place for them that kept them accessible, out of the way and easy to move, BUT, the pages are not strong enough to stay upright and I don't want to damage the book....   All of a sudden in the midst of my annual beginning of the year mess, I spotted one of my HUGE binder clips!  It fits!!!!  AND it holds the pages to the cardboard back so that the book can be stored where I want it.   Woohoo!!!   

 

 

Music Makes Me Happy - Bulletin Board - Fall 2014

A few days ago I posted about some clip art I created.  I used the clipart in these posters for my hallway bulletin board.  I'm pleased with the way that everything tuned out.    I printed my posters at OfficeMax on 11x17 paper and then had them hard laminated.  I was VERY reasonably priced and cheaper than buying a poster set at the teacher store. 

 

DOWNLOAD music clip art!

 

 

On the Road Again with Roadmapping.

Today my wonderful co-teacher and I got a chance to sit down together and map out the first few weeks of school.  Since this year we aren't both new to the school, we were able to get done in about an hour what took us at least 3 hours last year.  We didn't dig in too deep because we know we will have some more time next week, but we got the first 5 lessons of the year roughly mapped out.  This is heavy on the ROUGH because we were talking and I was trying to write really fast so that I wouldn't loose the thoughts.  It was truly enjoyable to plan because we now have first hand knowledge about lessons we taught at this time last year.  We had the chance to reflect and I'm certain that although the skeleton of our instruction is the same, the delivery will be much better because of the refining we did today.  We both endured I mean enjoyed 30 hours of GT training last week and I'm pleased to say that our time and efforts paid off because several of the strategies and methods that we learned about have actually made their way into our lessons.

This is the first time that I've been able to use the chart that I created for long range planning.
 To download this chart click here.   In our district we formally submit our lesson plans digitally which isn't a problem, except that I find it difficult to transition from a great time of planning and thinking with my partner into actually sitting down at my computer and writing the plans.  I'll be honest and admit this has more to do with the fact that I have never really had a way to keep track of our ideas that worked for me.  Over the years, most of my roadmapping has consisted of a collection of randomly selected post-it notes falling off my computer monitor and sometimes into the trash before I could spare a moment to type them up, share them and submit them.  I am so excited about having this chart in my planner because seeing 4 lessons for each grade level is really great for continuity.  The picture I've included is only of Kinder, 1st and 2nd, but you should know that my 3rd, 4th and 5th is equally as sloppy.  I decided to highlight around the border after our session just to aid me as I looked over my notes. 

I understand that sometimes folks who have a teaching partner split up the work by grade level so that each person is responsible for developing, preparing and formally submitting the lessons for their assigned grade levels.  I'm sure that would work, but I have found that it helps me teach better when I'm involved in the planning and prep of all of the grade levels I teach.  The way we solve the problem is by being responsible for either the odd lessons or the even lessons for each grade level.  This method forces us to collaborate more than we would have to if we only planned and prepared half of the grade levels because our lessons actually have to make sense together.  It may not be something that would work for everyone, but I think it works really well for us. 

FREE Lesson plan!

A few weeks ago, when I posted my lesson plan template, I was asked to show how I would actually use this template in planning.  With that in mind, I've included a version of a lesson that I teach often.  In this plan I refer to form books and mapping, both are tools used in ETM to help students develop both self-actuated and traditional music symbols. ETM refers to music education training and resources provided by The Richards Institute of Education and Research or Education Through Music.  "Let's Do it Again!" is a collection of folk songs and song experience games collected and developed by the Richards Institute.   For more information about ETM and the research done by the Richards Institute, please feel free to check out the information I've provided here.  ETM