Music room Set up: It’s the beginning of school, and I thought I would post pictures of my Music room set up. I’m very blessed to be in a wonderful private school setting with a really nice, large room.
Fresh start:
At the beginning of each year, I try to rearrange everything just so it makes it fresh for the kids…. and me! I’ve discovered so many beautiful touches to classrooms through Pinterest… I’m afraid I’m not much on the cute side. I would rather be working on a Smartboard lesson than creating cute. However, I do like to be organized as much as possible. I’d like to show you some classroom ideas that are working for me.
Music Room Set Up
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| I like to be able to see my schedule from everywhere in the room |
Music Room Set Up: Schedule: I recreated my daily music schedule in WORD and enlarged it so I can see it from everywhere in the music room.
Music Room Set Up: Bulletin board  All the attention is toward my SMARTBoard, but the two bulletin boards on either side are used to work on current lessons.
- We’re singing the Star Spangled Banner for the upcoming HS Football game and we’re learning where to breathe correctly.
Music Room Set Up: Inspiration  This verse in Colossians is my favorite and inspires be to put my whole heart into teaching every child that walks through my door! I like for my music room set up to inspire the kids give their best. I’ll lead the way!
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| Storage using dish pans works for me. |
Music Room Set Up:Â Storage
- Adding a strip of wood on the side of each shelf created a running track for the dish pans. They now stack on top of each other and slide out easily.Â
- Most of the rhythm instruments are stored in these dish pans. My students can easily identify them and get what they need without my help. Music room set up is fun.
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| This is the “Sofa”wall in the music room. |
Music Room Set Up: Teaching wall space
- One wall in my music room is for reading notes. It includes the Curwen hand signs, the notes on the staff (key of C) and recorder fingerings. My kids call this the “Sofa” wall because of the Solfege.
- If you would like these Sol-Fa children images, you may download them at the end of this post.
- I just enlarged these images on tabloid paper and colored them, then made the long staff  paper and created the recorder fingering posters in Illustrator.
- If you would like the recorder images, you may download them at the end of this post.
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| Every spot in the Music room has a purpose and a name. |
Music Room Set up: Storing Charts
- Even though most of my teaching is done via the SMARTBoard, I still have teaching posters, etc. that I need to organize.
- By adding extra “L” brackets, I was able to add extra shelves to this metal piece and it has worked beautifully for keeping everything separated.
- The Music Rules (Hot-glued to this sentence strip pocket) cover the unsightly shelves during the day.
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| I used a dish towel to make this simple chair bag. |
- Risers: The music room is large enough to set up five riser sections and still have room for movement in the front of the room.
- Makeshift Desks: By putting the chairs behind the risers, we are able to create a desk for the children. Scarves, rhythm sticks, and instruments are laid out before the children arrive. At the signal, they can go to the risers and pick them up.
- Chair Bags: On the other hand, I sewed a cloth pocket bag for each chair that holds sticks, scarves, bean bags, etc. if we are using chairs in a circle.
- Options: Having options and extra room really makes the class time flow much more smoothly.
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| The glockenspiel are used with Recorder Karate students. We have other Orff instruments stored in the hallway. The blue crate above the orange Glocks hides my snack stash! |
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| Can you tell I’m a pack-rat? I find and use so many things the other grades throw away each year. The clipboards, the magazine holders, the pipe-cleaners, the empty folders… all reclaimed trash! |
Check out this post about music room storage!!Â
Cherie Herring
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15 thoughts on “Music Room Set Up”
Beautiful classroom! I love the line note and space note illustration. Do you mind telling me where I can possible buy/download that?
Thanks, Joy! The images for the line and space kids are included in the solfege kids link . Let me know if I need to send them to you separately. I’mglad you can use them!!
Cherie
Hi, Gwenn! I am fortunate enough to have enough room in front of the risers for my children to sit on the floor. I have chairs and crates that I move in and out as needed. When I teach chorus, I have the children sit in assigned sections on the risers. During regular classes, we do so much movement and floor activities….. we are mostly on the floor. Keeping the little ones from running into the risers is a challenge! There is room to store items under the risers, but it all gets so dirty that I like to keep it cleaned out!!
Do you have enough room for floor activities in your setting?
Cherie
Loving the dish pan storage drawers…mine are just used randomly around my room, but I love how you’ve used them for instrument storage…what shelving unit did you use for them?
I have a huge wall unit and the shelves are all 12×12.
They slide out and that allows me to stack them and use them easily. 🙂
Cherie
Lauren, you are so kind to include my blog, show my room, and say such nice words. Thanks bunches!!! I just love how blogging has opened the whole world and allowed us to encourage, challenge, and learn from each other. When I feel alone in my struggles, I have my list of blogs to visit (yours is included!) that inspire me and put the wind back in my sails! In the south, its kinda like sitting on the front porch visiting together and enjoying a glass of sweet tea! It wouldn’t be any fun without our great PLN – Personal Learning Neighbors!! Air-Hug! – Cherie
Hi, Cherie! Your room looks great! I was wondering where you found the Colossians banner for your room.
Hi Michelle, I found it at Educational Wonderland, a school supply store that also has a Christian section. 🙂
Thanks!
Dear Cherie,
Thank you so much for sharing this. I loved the way you organized all the music materials and I’m so thankful that you put up pictures about your classroom organization. I teach General Music in a beautiful and historical building where there are only three rooms with doors. All the classrooms are separated by the heavy curtain divider and there are no doors.
My music classroom was in a room where are walls and a door for sound proof last year but I’ve been moved to a similar sized room with a different layout this year. I just finished teaching two classes today and each class is about 25 kids. I know our resources are limited as a building, I know, and I’ve tried to work with what they gave me. But I have kids complaining it’s hot, it’s too crowded, and it’s small. A teacher just gave me a fan to help air out the room but could you also share some suggestions on my current classroom design? I could send you some pictures and I wanted to see is there anything else I could do to save room for my kids to move around?
Thank you and after seeing your blog, I’ve been greatly encouraged.
Sincerely,
Kelly
The Sol-fa kids are sooooooo cute. Thank you for sharing your hard work
You’re so welcome, Irene! I hope you can use the idea and the download.
hey Cherie! I love your Sol-Fa Children and your recorder charts but my computer cant seem to download them. I was wondering if you had them in any other sort of format. I know I’m asking for alot here but if it’s not too much trouble, I would love them! I am a first year teacher, teaching K-5 this year so I’m just getting things started and I love your room. I also found your boards on pinterest and found lots of awesome ideas! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your wonderful work!!! I LOVE the little solfa kids, the recorder charts and the Boy/Girl-Space/Line! SO CREATIVE!!!! I found my way to your blog via Rhythm and Glues. I was looking for bulletin board ideas for a long-term sub job that I found out about late Friday afternoon. Classes start on Wednesday and I have 2 days to two rooms decorated and organized! You have WONDERFUL ideas!!! Thank you so much for being so generous!!!!
Hi Debbie! Thanks for dropping by. I’m glad you’ve found ideas you can use. If you need anything, just let me know…. I’m happy to share. Yikes… two rooms in two days is pushing it! I ended up painting my bulletin boards this year because re-papering them every year just took too much time. I”m hoping that saves time.. at some point! Best of luck to you… stay in touch!
Cherie