2/4 Tuesday - More Music Books I Love

As I mentioned in previous posts (There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed Some Leaves, Iza Trapani Books, & Get Ready to Romp) I love using books in my classroom.
Here are a few more I love:

1. Freddie the Frog Series: I cannot believe I haven't talked about these already. They are remarkable. They tell the story of Freddie and his friend Eli the Elephant. There are 5 stories in all and they all help teach young children (ages 3-9) different music concepts. This includes tempo, treble clef notes, bass clef notes, and jazz. There is also a great site you can go to and reinforce the concepts used in the books. (Click on the picture to go to the Freddie the Frog Site)




2. Puff the Magic Dragon: This book is the classic song, but has such beautiful illustrations! I love this song and I'm sure a lot of you do, too. My students love this song and ask for it all the time! (Click the picture for Amazon buying details)
   

On a completely new topic, I have continued to update the look of my blog! What do you think? I still have some things I want to continue to edit and I may still even change some of the pieces I updated, but I think it is really starting to look personalized. My goal is to make it look really nice as an inspiration to keep up with this blog. Make sure to check out the CONNECT TO ME links on the right to connect you with all the social media I'm apart of. (Including my new facebook page!) Also, if you have a music education blog button feel free to send it my way and I will add it.

Decorating Fairview

After decorating Bonduel for two days, I spent FOUR days decorating Fairview. That is the most time I have ever spent decorating my room, but it was definitely worth it!

The first things I worked on was my word wall on the south wall. This wall has a whole bunch of music words organized in categories. I know a lot of word walls are alphabetical, but I like having words in categories to make it easier for students to find the word they are looking for. I posted both posters that I bought, as well as, posters that I created this summer:

BEFORE


FINISHED PRODUCT


I also added an awesome bulletin board next to the word wall. This bulletin board was actually quite simple to make and I used black 'painters tape' to create the keys. It looks so great now that it is finished and it really adds something to my 'music story corner.'



The next thing I worked on was creating a small story corner. This is the corner I use when I sing a story to my little ones. That is one of my favorite things to do when teaching the little ones. I have all sorts of song storybooks and they love listening to the stories and singing along to their favorites like Puff the Magic Dragon and Over the Rainbow.

BEFORE


AFTER

This is not a particularly good picture... but you get the idea.

The next step was adding the learning target dry erase boards and the music alphabet like I had in Bonduel:


The final step, creating a Student of the Month bulletin board to show the great achievements my students:


For more pictures check out my album on my Flickr Account.
Thanks for Reading!!!

Preparing for Another Year

I teach between two rural schools all school year. I absolutely love what I do, but there are obviously some disadvantages of teaching between two schools. One of them is that you have to decorate not just one room, but two!

This year I was a little smarter about how I worked in my classrooms. At the end of the school year I already prepared both of my bulletin boards in Bonduel. Bonduel finished school about 3 days earlier than Fairview. That meant that I could work my normal school hours by teaching at Fairview then driving to Bonduel and working in my classroom. By the time school was officially out, my bulletin boards were prepared for the 2012-2013 school year:


The first bulletin board used a black tablecloth as the background. I bought the downloadable and printable components of this bulletin board at the Music Bulletin Board website (great site for music educators to get ideas for bulletin boards). You can go to the downloadables part of the site and they have all sorts of great bulletin board sets. It is especially great for teachers like myself who have to work in two different classrooms. This way I can print off the items more than once and use them in both schools for the price of just ONE download.

This bulletin board highlights how music is related to all the subjects. The music notes explain 'how?' in more detail. It is a great reminder to everyone that comes into my classroom, why music is more than just a 'fun' class. It helps students grow academically AND emotionally.



The second bulletin board was also an idea I got from the Music Bulletin Board Website. It says conduct yourself accordingly and it has classroom expectations, as well as, concert etiquette:


To finish decorating Bonduel, I added a music alphabet (I drew all the pictures, colored them, and then laminated them). I did NOT create the characters, but used characters from Freddie the Frog by Sharon Burch. Sharon is a music teacher who wrote a series that teaches young kids about the notes on the treble and bass clef stalves. Students love learning about Freddie, his friends, different tempos, music notes, rhythms, and scatting.


I also created two simple posters. I created posters because they are simple to take down and put up as the seasons change:




Finally, I moved around the piano, changed my seating arrangement, and added posters of the instruments of the orchestra:





If you would like to see more pictures of my classroom in Bonduel, please check out my Flickr Account.
Thanks for Reading!