I'm BAAAACK!!!

UPDATE:  I have joined up with other music bloggers at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room to share our classroom setups.  Click the image below to check out some other awesome rooms!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It is a special calling to work with middle school/junior high kids.  And I don't have it.  After two (long, stressful, anxiety-inducing) years teaching grades 5-8 music and choir, I am finally back in my element--Elementary, baby!  These are my people.  We love the babies.  Hugs, notes, pictures, cute bulletin boards, and even shoe-tying and nose-wiping.  Okay, maybe not that last one.  But I am SO HAPPY to be back with the littles!  I am giddy with excitement, and I've spent the last two weeks organizing and decorating my new classroom.  It is an old building--my husband had elementary music in the SAME ROOM many moons ago--but I've taken the blue doors and electric yellow trim and turned it into my happy home away from home.  Here it is!

All my storage is in wooden cabinets.  The doors are not very attractive, but I'm gradually adding to them. 

Pocket chart ready for rhythm/melody cards, a spot for objectives (a.k.a. "What are we doing today?"), white board/projector screen, Who's Next Board.  

I think I'm going to like the cabinets and shelf here.  I keep all of my manipulatives, books, and toys/props readily available here.  And the clouds.  They are my new favorite thing.  I found them on Pinterest and downloaded them from this music teacher blog,  Rhythm and Glues. 

My teacher's corner.  Love. Complete with my very own teacher toolbox. 

It's hard to see, but I used colored velcro to mark sit spots on the floor.  I found colored velcro in 36'' pieces at Hobby Lobby this year for just $1.49! 

This is a shortcut version of my guided listening word wall, first introduced HERE. Hopefully one day I can upgrade to the original version, but this works for now. 

Just a closeup of the cuteness inspired by Rhythm and Glues. 

All ready to post objectives for the first week! 

That's it!  My new happy music home.  I am looking forward to a great year of singing, playing, dancing, and loving on my kiddos.  I hope your year is off to a great start as well.  Remember to take care of yourself, eat well, drink lots of water, and take your vitamins.  When I feel good, I am a better teacher/wife/mom/friend/person.  So go to bed early, and get ready to change the world, one song at a time. 

Google Docs for the Classroom

This is the time of year when most teachers are organizing, with a capital "O".  We plan, design, arrange, rearrange, redesign, and do everything we can to make the new year start strong.  One of my favorite tools to use is Google Docs.

If you have not seen or heard about Google Docs, it is high time you learned! It is a great way to store and share documents with others, collaborate on projects, and create forms for your programs.  Best of all, it's FREE!  All you have to do is create a Google ID for yourself. 

My favorite features are:

1. SHARING - I can share documents with anyone, anywhere I want.  If I want to share something I made with music teachers across the state, they can access it here.  No more multiple emails to send large files or pictures. Many of the bloggers I follow share their work as a Google document, so I can download them easily.  Also, if you open a shared document from someone else, it will be automatically added to your own Googledocs library.

2.  FORMS - OMGoodness, this is the BEST!  I use this to have kids sign up for choir auditions every year.  You set up the form and share the link with whomever you wish.  They fill in the form, and you have a spreadsheet with everyone's information already entered. I also use it to collect student information, take orders for t-shirts, and anything else I can think of.  No more worrying about whether I wrote down the correct size, or trying to read messy handwriting!

(You could also use the forms to create a quiz that students can take on the computer.  Their answers will be put into the spreadsheet for easy grading. I haven't done it, but I think it could be useful.)

3.  ACCESSIBILITY - You can access your Google docs from any computer, any time.  Left your laptop at home?  That's okay.  If you have an internet connection, you can access your stuff and work on it.  You can even share it with a colleague and work on it together. 

As you can see, I am a bit of a fan of the GoogleDocs.  I encourage you to check it out.  Get a Google ID for yourself, if only to be able to check out other people's stuff!

For more information about using Google Docs in the classroom, check out THIS LINK.

Here's to a well-planned, well-organized school year!

My Organizing Binder

Hello friends!  I hope you are having a wonderful summer break and are taking some time to relax and rest!  This is the time in the summer when I start organizing my brain for next year.  My room is not ready yet--my hall is always the last one to get cleaned and polished--so I'm not even going to think about it until the end of July.  Meanwhile, though, I can get my School Notebook ready. 

I have been using a notebook to keep my school life together for several years.  It's the only way I keep it together some months, especially when I am on several committees and projects.  *Let me say here, that I love technology, and I keep everything I possibly can on my computer, but sometimes, you just need a pen and paper, or a place to put handouts, etc.*  I've seen blog posts about classroom teachers' binders, but not music teachers, so I thought I'd share my version with you.

First, I got a 1-1/2 inch binder.  One inch is not enough for me, and 2" is too big to carry around, so this works for me.  I have to make it cute so I enjoy looking at it every day. :)  I found this subway art on Pinterest (don't you LOVE Pinterest?) and matted it with some cute scrapbook paper.

I've divided my notebook into eight sections:

1.  IMPORTANT INFORMATION:  This includes the district instructional calendar, class schedule, duty schedules, and probably a monthly calendar as well.  I use my Outlook calendar for everything, but sometimes it's easier and faster to look at a paper calendar. I'll either hole punch the freebie we usually get in August, or  print out my Outook calendar to put here.

2. CURRICULUM:  This includes TEKS, our District Specific Objectives, and instructional calendars as needed. That stuff you need to refer to when lesson planning. :)

3. LESSON PLAN IDEAS:  My formal lesson plan is done online, but this is where I sketch out the six weeks plans.  I made a planning sheet so I can see the whole six weeks on one page, just to know where I'm headed with each grade level.  This is also where I write down those brainstorms for future lessons.  I keep blank paper here for those ideas so I don't lose them forever (because if I don't write them down. that's what would happen!).

4. MEETING NOTES:  I started out with a different tab for each section of meeting notes (team meetings, committee meetings, faculty meetings, district music meetings), but I decided that was just too many tabs.  I put them all in one section, but with a piece of cardstock separating each.  You could do it either way.

5.  BUDGET PLANNING:   I don't have a huge budget, but I do have enough to get to make some purchases for my classroom each year.  I use this section to write down things as I think of them, so when it's time to spend my budget money I can remember what all I wanted to buy.  Because seriously, I cannot keep that stuff in my brain!

6. COMPUTER & SOFTWARE:  First, I have a spreadsheet of all of the (many) programs we use in the district, with username/password listed.  Plus all those teacher sites I've joined so I can get great ideas, my choir site account, etc.  Again, I will not remember how to log in to my stuff after a month, so this is important!  After that, my notes about new software, how to do things I only use twice a year, etc.

7. CLASSROOM STUFF: This is the catchall for things that don't fit in the other categories, like bulletin board ideas, games I want to make, music advocacy stuff, etc.

8. And finally, PROJECTS:  As the music teacher, we get asked to do other things outside of our classroom curriculum.  Like programs, contests, and campus celebrations.  Last year I wanted to start a Veteran's Day celebration on our campus, so this is where I kept those notes.  They don't really fit into any other category, but I needed a place to keep them straight.

And that's it! My beautiful little organized piece of the world!  It looks so pretty now, I almost hate to mess it up....Ha!  No really, I can't wait to start filling it up with the joys and challenges this year will bring.  I take this notebook with me everywhere--and when my computer dies (like it did last April), I am not completely lost! 

This post is linked to this awesome linky party--if you love organization, you must check out Delightful Order!

Those who do the work, do the learning

That's a truth I totally believe, but I'm not always good at living it.  I mean, it's just so much easier to do things myself, rather than try to explain to someone one else how to do them.  I am really working on giving my students more responsibility for their learning, starting with the little(ish) things. 

I am kinda funny about organization.  Everything has a place, and a correct way to fit into that place.  Trusting 8-year-olds to get out and put away instruments safely and neatly is REALLY hard for me.  Enter the colored dots:



Sticker Dots sold in office supply stores.



These marvelous little dots have made my life so much easier!  Here's how it works:  each mallet instrument has a colored dot on the side. (Soprano=blue, Alto=yellow, Bass=red, Glocks and specialty mallets=green) There is a dot of the same color on the mallets for those instruments.  There is another dot on the shelf where that instrument is stored.  The mallet cans are also color coded in the same way.  Students know which mallets go with their instrument, which can to put them in, and where to put away the instrument at the end of class.  I can see at a glance what is missing or misplaced and make adjustments as needed.  I'm still tweaking the system for weaknesses, but so far I'm excited!  No more setting up and taking down by myself!  And yes, this is a great lesson for kids.  They feel more responsible, and it shows in their class participation as well.

UPDATE:  Love it!  Everything has ended up back in the right place, and I didn't have to put everything away myself.  This is HUGE, especially since my schedule this year does not allow time in between classes to rearrange everything.  The older kids have to set up/take down during class time, and now I can relax and let them do it. Why didn't I do this sooner?



Pick Me! Pick Me!

Don't you just hate it when you have to choose a child to do something, and they're ALL sitting quietly, doing exactly what you asked? (Don't laugh...it happens!)  It's SO hard to choose, and I for one do not have the memory capacity to know who got to have a turn last week, or even last hour!   When I first started teaching elementary music, a veteran teacher told me how she does it, and I have been making her system mine for 15 years now.  It totally works!

I call it the "Who's Next?" board.  I have an envelope for every class that comes to music each week. This year, I labeled them with grade/day of the week, hoping it will be helpful for subs and reusable next year.  I have also put teacher's names on the envelopes in the past.

The first or second week of school, I have each class make their cards.  I give them an index card and ask them to write their name VERY neatly, and their class code (helps in case a card gets separated from the stack).  The older kids also have to write a sentence.  This year I used, "I am good at..."  It's a great way for them to tell me what they love and are good at, plus forces them to focus on a positive trait.  AND, we are putting a huge emphasis on writing on our campus, so this is a way I can help toward that goal.

The cards go in the class envelope.  When I need to choose a child to do something, I always take the front card, then put it in the back.  The kids know that their card will not be chosen again until ALL of the other cards have been pulled.  Sometimes I will go through the whole stack in one class, other times I only need one or two.  Either way, we all know no one will be forgotten.  It is awesome!  They don't beg or argue, and when someone starts to, the other kids will say, "she's going to pick a card!" and everyone is cool.

The next obstacle was to remember to put cards in for new students that move in throughout the year.  Ahem, yeah, I'm not exactly known for my excellent memory....in my defense, I've had two babies and I'm over 40, so brain cells are leaking out everywhere.  Anyway, I think I've found a solution:

I mounted a box to hold extra cards and a couple of pencils on the board.  Next to it are directions for making your card.  I told my kids that they can help new students when they come to music for the first time.  There are always little helpers that will remember that way better than I will!

I love that all my students know that everyone is important, and I am doing my best to make sure no one is left out in music class.  After all, everyone is expected to participate!

Let's Talk...SUB PLANS

I know, school hasn't even started yet, so why am I talking about sub plans?? Hey, you never know who's gonna end up sick the first day of school...and yes, it's happened to me before!  SO, here we go...

Sometimes it's just easier to go to school than write out sub plans, right?  That is especially hard in the music room.  First, it's hard to find a sub who will take a music job sometimes--they think if they are not musicians, they can't do it, or they are not comfortable singing, etc.  When you do find a sub, you never know what their musical skills will be.  After many years of teaching, I came up with a Sub Notebook that actually works great for me. 

First, there are the usual schedules, who to ask for help, copy codes, etc.  Then comes the special section.  I have a master list called an "Emergency Sub Plan".  For this page, I list games/activities that each grade level already knows how to play.  They are favorites that the kids ask for again and again, so positive participation is almost a guarantee!  I try to update the list at least once every six weeks, to keep current faves on the lists.

The next section contains detailed instructions for each game and activity.  I use a lot of the same favorites every year, so once I write out the directions once, it is done forever!  The songs/games are filed in alphabetical order for easy reference.  It's like an encyclopedia of music favorites, all there for the sub to find and read before class starts. 

I have gotten lots of positive feedback from subs about this plan.  It works great for me, and if I'm too sick to think about a sub plan, it's all good!  I hope this helps you prepare for those unexpected absences during the year, too.  If you would like a copy of my template, check out my TpT store.

What's your favorite sub plan?