What's on My Wall!

It's hard to believe that our first week back at school is almost over. So far, I've been having a great time getting to know my classes and meeting new students that I did not teach last year. Before it's too late, I wanted to hop on that "classroom reveal" bandwagon. I am linking up with Tracy King over at Mrs. King's Music Room to share "What's On My Wall!" Make sure to read all the way to the end because I'm also including a FREEBIE to download!

I'm so glad to get to participate in this linkup since I actually had a room to decorate this year! Since I teach itinerantly, it's always up in the air whether I'm going to have my own space at various schools. (I'm on a cart at my other school, so I'm planning to do a whole post on my cart organization some time in the near future.) This year, I have a portable all to myself at one school. So here it is:

I know I still have some blank spaces to fill- like a whole bookshelf where my new Spotlight on Music textbooks will be going- and plenty more anchor charts and student work as the year progresses. 

Here's a breakdown of some of my favorite parts of the room:

Front of the room and my rug

I am opting for no chairs this year... there aren't even any in the classroom! Hopefully I won't get too many complaints from kids about this. But I plan to keep them up and moving frequently, so the chairs really just get in the way.

I don't have a smart board at this school, but I do have a pull down screen and projector. I use a wireless mouse on a clipboard that I pass around when I want to have a student take a turn using something interactive on the computer.

Under the chalkboard

Under the chalkboard, I set up a tempo race track (the faster tempos are winning the race, obviously.) Next are my recorder fingering charts. They're actually from before I started selling my resources on TpT so they're not all "dressed up." Then I have a poster that says "What country's music are we studying today?" next to a map of the world, so I can point out where our music comes from.

"I Can" Statements

(I know, I know... I put my flags up backwards!!! I'm going to fix that first thing on Monday when I'm back in that room!!!)

I use my dry-erase board for my daily objectives, which are posted in the form of "I Can" statements. This adorable set came from I <3 Teaching Music. The set also came with the new national standards cards in a very kid-friendly format, so I posted those underneath the board.

Above the board, which I know is hard to see because of the glare, sorry, it says "Music are what feelings sound like." To the right of the board, I put up my solfege ladder. This set is specifically color coordinated to match my boomwhackers, xylos, and hand bells. You can pick it up from my store here.

Back of the room - reference section

In the back of my classroom I have posted my note values anchor charts and Thinking Maps (Thinking Maps are a county-wide initiative so I am always looking for ways to include them in my music lessons.) I've got a nice dry-erase board with staff lines, which is currently on top of the piano. 

Minion Themed Bulletin Board

This bulletin board is really just for fun! It's already grabbed quite a few kids' attentions at they line up right next to it. Inside the folder, I placed a Beethoven coloring page that kids can take home or complete if they are an early finisher. I plan to teach a lesson on Beethoven later in the school year, so hopefully this bulletin board will build interest for that.

My small- but growing- instrumentorium

Don't worry- I have access to many more instruments than this! Since I'm the part-time teacher at this school, most of the orff instruments and a TON of other class percussion is housed in the other music teacher's classroom. We collaborate and share materials constantly. So I only have a few basic go-to instruments in here, like a class set of rhythm sticks and some basic percussion.

The blue poster is one of my favorite quotes from Leopold Stokowski: "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." I frequently reference it when I'm asking students to be quiet.

The poster with the guitar came from my local Target, but it's also available from AllPosters.com. And it's only $5! I showed it to my husband- who is a guitarist- and he insisted that I buy another one to frame and put in our basement.

MEGADESK

Last, in the corner of my room, I present to you: MEGADESK. I know that there's a growing trend on Pinterest for teachers to get rid of their desks altogether (my school's custodian was complaining about having to remove a ton of desks this year.) I guess that makes me old-fashioned then because I love having my own little retreat in the corner of the room. So I put three tables together to create MEGADESK. Obviously I don't sit there while I'm teaching. But I love having all that space to spread out and get to work on projects. It's like my own little fortress.

I've surrounded my personal workspace with things that inspire me: The blue sign above my computer says, "Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try" which I bought after my first year teaching. That first year was a rough one for me and I thought about leaving the teaching field. But my husband encouraged me to give it another year and really have a mindset to try and give it my all. And guess what? I'm still here!

On the other wall, I have a rally towel for the Baltimore Orioles (Let's Go O's!) and another personal favorite quote. This one is from Dr. Edwin Land: "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail." 

I also made a set of little positivity posters with some tidbits of inspiration on them. They're perfect to look at on a lousy day when I need a reminder of why I do what I do. I'm giving this away for free, so go ahead and download the complete set of four! They each fit in a 4x6 picture frame, or you can just staple them to the wall like I did.

At the top of the wall I printed out my name using these beautiful sheet music letters. Tanenblatt has a lot of letters in it, so there was a lot of cutting and trimming laminate going on here.....

So there you have it! I hope you liked the tour of my room! If you're still looking for classroom decor, you can find some of my pieces here in my TpT store.

Don't forget to check out Mrs. King's Music Room to get a peek at what other teachers are doing!