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Glockenspiel Stands

I have had many people ask me where I found the glockenspiel stands for my classroom.

I've tried and tried to remember what they were called but couldn't.  Well, this weekend my husband and I were working around our house and made a trip to Lowe's for a few supplies.  I happened across the stands and actually bought one for some home organization.

Great news, they have them at both my local Home Depot and Lowe's and they are priced at $5.98 each.

Music Journal Storage

Earlier in the summer, I posted about my Back to School Find; file crates.  At the end of last year I was so sick of getting materials to kids because of the way I had them laid out.  My supplies were in one corner and it created a traffic jam and instead of taking 1 minute, it took 5.

Over the summer, I purchased some storage containers from Target, the Dollar Tree and Walmart to help keep things simple and fast.  Behind each riser I have a place for students to store their music journals, as well as storage for pencils, clipboards, dry erase markers and any other small material we need.

The file crates have really simplified things.  Last year I did not store the kids music journals.  This became a big problem because kids would lose them or classroom teachers may forget if they were coming right after lunch/playground.  This year the journals are always in the room when we need them.

Each team has 2 crates (I had to go back and buy more because I seriously underestimated how many kids I have!), and inside the crates are hanging folders labeled withe their classroom teachers name.  There are also numbers attached to the class I see first on each day of the rotation.  So, if I see Mrs. Smith, Ms. Jones and Mr. Johnson's class on day one, in that order; Mrs. Smith's Class has a number one stapled to it. (Hope that makes sense.)

When the kids brought their folders in during the first lesson, I gave them each a label with a color coded dot.  They put it on their folder and write their name and their teacher's name on it.  This let's me easily put their folder away should they leave it out by accident.  If you click and enlarge the first picture in this post, you can see the labels.

When the kids come in their Section Leaders pass out the folders and we get started on our lesson.

Hooks For Rhythm Cards

Over the summer I came across this pin from A Day in the Life of a Classroom Teacher .

I thought this would be a great way to store my 8 beat rhythm cards; I hate when they are laying all over my cabinets.  I found hooks at Lakeshore Learning, they weren't very expensive, and stuck them to the sides of my cabinets.  If you don't have a Lakeshore Learning near you, your teacher supply store  should have something similar or Command hooks are another great buy.  

My Rhythm Cards:

More posts on using hooks to come soon.

2012-2013 Classroom Tour

I finally had a moment today to take pictures of my classroom set up.  I was hoping to have more done before I took these pics but honestly this year seems to have been more hectic than others.  As you will probably notice, I haven't even had a minute to put my word wall cards back in the pocket charts.

I have finally come to grips with the fact that it will just have to wait for another day.  I have a few more days of my beginning of the year lesson before we start really getting into things, so that is a bit comforting.  Hopefully be the end of week 2 all wall decor/unpacking will be done.  Fingers crossed!  :)

This is the entrance to my classroom.  Not pictured here but to the left of the door is the Performer's Corner, a display where I post information to keep my performing groups organized.  To the right is my Pluck-a-Note display.

I got this idea from my best buddy, the art teacher at my school.  She always posts Art Advocacy materials on or outside her door.  It's so great to have this information posted when administration is giving a new family a tour of the school or for classroom teachers as they wait to pick up their kids.

The view from the door.

Inside the door I have my bookcases and rocking chair.  I love having this space to sit and play line games with my students while we wait for their teachers.  (Looking at it now, I realize how much more is still boxed up!  Those bottom shelves are bare.)  I also keep my recorder karate belts and recorder karate music next to my chair.  Check out this related post:  Recorder Karate .

On my cabinets are my Word Wall and Fingering Charts.  If you notice I have trapezoid tables behind my risers.  Instead of having the barred instruments on the floor in an instrumentarium, I have my students rotate around the tables.  In Kindergarten, we sit in rows and play instruments.  I will take another picture later in the year but normally my BX/BM/CBB are in the corner between the red and blue risers but for now they are still in the cabinets.

Behind the green and blue risers and next to the back door, I have a cabinet with drums, found sounds and my white boards.  I also house my tubanos along this wall.  And down at the end is my thinking spot.  I will post more on this later.

I moved this book case up front this year.  It was back where the tubanos are now and it was such a pain to get to these instruments.  Much easier!!!  On the bathroom door is my Common Board Configuration .

Under my bulletin board I have storage units that I bought at Target.  In the green and blue bins are the instruments I use most frequently with Kindergarten.  These containers are easy for them to move in and out and are close to where they sit.  Below are close ups of the labels and contents of the bins.  I use these instrument labels throughout my room.  

My white board and glockenspiel storage.

 Doc cam and more storage.  In this unit I have all of my movement resources (scarves, ribbons, balls, etc.) extra mallets, and rewards.  Behind the cabinet is my desk and on the wall are my rules.  I got my rules from Sandy Lantz at my Level I.

 Earlier in the summer I posted this: Summer Project  I ended up finding the Laiva desk at Ikea.  It was cheaper, sturdier and the color blended with my cabinets.

And it has a nice little space for pen storage.

 It has taken me 3 years to figure out that I could move the piano!  Not really.  I just didn't figure out that I had the space to move the piano away from my desk in order to have a path for me to walk through.  I spent 3 years walking from the front of my classroom all the way around to where the doc cam was behind my desk!  Sometimes I wonder about myself.  :)

 My space.

Behind the piano is a sink area.  This is where I keep extra copies of newsletters and recorder karate packets.

Back to School Find

I have been looking for file storage crates for the kids music journals and I happened across these today at Walmart.  They have other colors but these work for organizing my 3 teams.  They cost $3.47 each.

I will place these on the table behind each section of risers.  Section Leaders will be responsible for distributing folders upon arriving for music.

Summer Project

One of the projects I want to work on this summer is solving the road blocks between me and my doc cam.  The layout of my classroom this year made it difficult to get to my doc cam when I wanted to display a recorder song, slideshow, video, etc.  Basically, I had to do a complete U-turn from where I usually do my direct instruction to get to my doc cam.

I think I have found the perfect spot at the front of my room but I need something to put the doc cam on.  I found this changing table from Ikea (Sniglar is the line.) but I think that I'm going to pretty it up by spray painting it a fun color and finding some fun baskets to put on the bottom shelf.  I'll post pics of it once it is pretty and in place!

Recorder Karate

This idea came from Mrs. Maddy, a teacher in my county.  By my door I have a stand with a binder of all the Recorder Karate songs.  Each song is copied onto a piece of cardstock that reflects the belt color.  At the end of our lesson students line up and I listen to students play for belts until their teacher arrives.

In a box next to the door I have all of the yarn and beads that I use for recorder karate.  I select a responsible student to cut belts so that I can focus on listening to students perform.  

Clean-Up

As I'm cleaning up my room and getting ready for summer (only 4 more days!), I am trying to organize things that have caused headaches throughout the year.  One thing that drove me up a wall was when I could find a poster but not the manipulatives that go with it.  My solution was Trend Poster Storage Boxes, Ziploc Bags, and Velcro dots.  Below are some images of how I organized my posters.

 Trend Storage on Amazon

 I started by organizing posters by grade level.  I listed the posters that are inside the sleeve and then I velcroed a ziploc bag with any small items to the front of the sleeve.  I know my stickers aren't the cutest but its something I can always change later.

I did not put all the small items in the ziploc bag on the front of the sleeve.  If the manipulatives went with a poster I attached them to the back of the poster.  The pictures above are an example of one of the posters.

I'm still working on organizing my other miscellaneous posters.  When everything is complete I'll post pics.