Music Room Setup
In your music room setup: don’t forget the ceiling! Putting musical clouds on the ceiling of the music room makes good use of ALL the teachable space! I used white poster board, painted the edges and lined it for depth, glued on a rhythm pattern, a melodic pattern, a musical symbol, and numbered each cloud. Using a very tall ladder, I stapled the clouds to the ceiling of the music room. Here are several different clouds and a look at the ceiling.
Music Room Setup: Teachable Spaces
- I always have a laser pointer in my music apron and I use it to point to and identify symbols in the clouds.
- I have the children lie down on their backs and race to find certain symbols or notes or rhythmic patterns.
- Students go on scavenger hunts and identify melodic or rhythmic patterns during their hunt around the music room. When you’re making teachable spaces in your music room setup, don’t forget the ceiling!
Music Room Setup: Musical clouds on the ceiling
- The musical clouds provide plenty of material and opportunities for teachable moments, or to fill a spot, or change the pace, or just to generate questions from students during the lesson.
- Students take turns clapping rhythms and others search for the correct cloud.
- We play “I Spy” and the children beg for more!
- When students walk in the door, I show them a symbol card and they have to enter quietly and search for the symbol in the cloud. They can’t talk or point. It’s pretty cool to see them searching…. and discovering
When it comes to your music room setup, I hope you can use the idea…
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Cherie Herring
Music/Technology Integration at Hammond School
I teach elementary music, am passionate about integrating technology into my teaching, am obsessed with my SMARTBoard and iPad, and enjoy creating lessons and sharing ideas. I love technology almost as much as I love cheesecake, and with more energy and ideas than I know what to do with, I can't wait for the sun to come up each morning! I'm wife to Prince Charming and mom to three incredible girls who keep me balanced. . . sort of!
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8 thoughts on “Music Room Setup: Don’t Forget the Ceiling”
Of course, I don’t mind at all. I created these clouds using 3 pieces of poster paper: a blue back piece, a white cloud and then a smaller white cloud on the top. It would be much easier to just paint the outline of the blue and the outline of the smaller cloud. Everything else I did actually has worked well over the last 8 years on my ceiling! Numbering the clouds is a must. Use a laser pointer and the kids will eat it up! Have fun and please let me see your finished project!!
🙂
Cherie
Thought I would let you know – I have been using my clouds every class period with my kiddoes, and it is really paying off! They are getting great at finding the rhythms and melodies I sing and play for them.
The coolest part – I have an intern right now. His university advisor came by to observe him teach. She was blown away by the clouds! I gave credit where credit was due.
Thanks for the great idea!
Lauren 🙂
Here are the clouds I made in Photoshop – http://rhythmandglues.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-music/
http://rhythmandglues.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/partly-cloudy-in-the-music-room/
Lauren, I’m so happy you sent me this note and so thrilled the idea continues to grow. You have done such a great job recreating them in a format that others can reproduce easily. I’m jealous of your poster printer! Thanks for sharing the happy news.
We’re in the home stretch!!
-Cherie
I love the idea of having learning on the ceiling. This weekend is a 3-day-weekend. I’m on it. Thanks!
Great! Send pictures when you finish!! Don’t forget your laser pointer!!
These look great! My only question is whether you’ve had a fire marshall complain about them. We’re not allowed to hang anything within 3 feet of the ceiling, so I’m thinking actually hanging something on the ceiling would pass muster. It’s a darn shame, too. Had to take down my board toppers!
Oops…I meant “wouldn’t pass muster”. It’s early…
Hi Mandy! Fortunately, the fire Marshall has never said anything about the clouds at all. My room has a very high ceiling- maybe that’s why it isn’t a problem.