My Music Room Set-Up

It's official, I survived the first week of school, lol!  There were a couple times that I didn't think it would happen, just kidding!!!

Today I'm linking up with Aileen Miracle at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room:

I meant to do this post before school but I was waiting for 1 FINAL touch, lol!

This year I decided to go all out in Legos!  Last year I made a couple files that were really successful with my kiddos: "The Treble Clef is AWESOME!" and "The Bass Clef is AWESOME!"  I also have a HUGE work in progress that I've been working on and off on since April called "Recorder is AWESOME".  (I'm really excited about trying to finish this up because my kids were the most successful they've ever been on recorders with some of the new strategies that I tried).  So, I dove right in and I have to attribute my lovely niece Ellie for helping me cut out many little Lego guys to make this possible.  Here she is with the bulletin board outside my classroom (isn't she sweet?!):

When you step into my room this is what it looks like to the right of the doorway:

 Here's a kitty-corner view from the door into the room:

 Here's pretty much across the room from the door.  To the left is my desk and then the "front" of the room where the LCD projector is projected.

Above my desk is NOT Lego's, it's my Bronco area.  Completely NOT musical, but I think it's important to have little aspect of who you are outside of a musician in your classroom.  It allows for the kids to have another connection with you.  I live in Bronco territory and bleed orange and blue.  The bonus of having my Broncos stuff out is that I have that extra connection with most of the boys in my classroom.  If they don't like the Broncos then we always "take friendly bets" on the games.  I also have to have pictures of my two kids and this year I have the sign that says "Amy".  That's a little piece of paper near and dear to my heart that reminds me of the lovely level 2 students I had the honor of working with this summer- they used it in their final skit! :)

Here's the front of the room, my screen is up and you can see that my daughter has been playing here, lol!

These are my MUSIC behavioral reminder signs.  I like to put them low so that they are at kid level:

 To the left of the picture above is a mini-counter that I have. It's awesome and I don't know why I didn't get a picture! But it has drawers that are about 2-5 inches in depth (depending on the drawer, they vary in size), and are about 4 feet by 3 feet.  They are PERFECT for storing teaching posters and manipulatives!  Above that is my "Do I Get It?" board.  This is what I use for students to check their levels of understanding.

To the left of that is a bookcase above which I have two music framed art that my PTO gave me and a picture of the most recent Red Hawk Recital participants.  The Red Hawk Recital is my version of a talent show.

 Here's a better view of the bookcase and that corner to the left of my door:

This is my behavior chart that has since come down. I'm replacing it, you'll see with what later in the post.  

 I love this storage!  The top is filled with all my manipulatives.  Um, yea.  And they don't all fit in there, hence all the stuff up on top.  The bottom is filled with drums, Orff instruments, tone chimes and some file boxes of music (I don't have a file cabinet nor do I have any wall space for one).  While this storage is amazing a kindergartner reminded me last week why I don't like it.  He said, "If this is the music room, where are the instruments?"  Well, we were playing hand drums and those were out but he's right, you walk into a music room and you expect to see all the instruments out!  

 The "back of the classroom"

 Here's a close up of the Instrument Bulletin Board:

 And here's a close up of the "Singing is Awesome" Bulletin Board:

This houses a lot of the non-pitched percussion instruments, some step bells and more manipulatives (and it's not as tidy as usual):

This is my new solfa ladder, it's on the beam between the windows closest to the risers:

And here are some elements of music (music symbols, dynamics and tempos)

Here's what it looks like from a distance:

So, I mentioned that I'm getting rid of my behavior chart.  You know, the main reason I had one was to help my student teacher last year.  I had never had one before.  Truth be told, I always forgot to use it.  This year, I'm going to apply the same principals as my "Do I Get It?" board to this new "Self Check-In" board.  This hasn't been posted up on the wall yet, but here's a peek at the posters, they too will have a banner just like the "Do I Get It?" board.  

 What I like about them is that the students are going to do self-check-ins.  I told them that I already know where they are but it's important for them to know too.  And these will directly transfer to what's expected of their behavior on our report cards.

Now, for the final piece for my room that I was waiting on before I could post. . ..  drum roll please (gosh, I'm a dork).. . .. .. .

Are you ready?!!!

A LEGO chair!!!  lol!!!  I had to.  I thought they would be so fun to use as solo performer seats.  And I have a couple little guys that are on the spectrum that need a chair to sit during class.  I actually have ordered another set that's blue (yes, Bronco colors, lol!)

The kids were so excited to use them last week and my kids (Noah and Hannah) has SUCH fun putting them together.

All of the "Music is Awesome!!" Bulletin Boards can be found at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Again, thanks to the amazing Aileen Miracle for hosting this linky party!  I hope that you all have an AWESOME start to your year!!!