What's On Your Wall - Link Up Part 1

So I've been dying to show all of you my rooms this year. I have to say I think this is my first year teaching that I'm proud of BOTH schools decorations. I teach at two very small rural schools and normally run in to all sorts of issues when it comes to preparing for a new school year. This year was no different, but I pushed through and am so happy with the final look. I'm linking up with Tracy King A.K.A. The Bulletin Board Lady to give you a picture tour of my classrooms.



Since, I have two separate themes I've decided to show you my rooms in two separate blog posts. This is the final product at School One.

At school one, I went with a sweet treats theme. I started by decorating the wall in the back of my room. It isn't tack-able, but it is ugly and warped. The wood has lots of scratches and chips in the paint. It is also one of the FIRST things you seen when you walk in the room. That is why it just has to be covered. The finished product is two 'bulletin boards'. The first one is one designed and created by me:

The background is aluminum foil, the border is cupcake liners, and it reads LIFE is SWEET in MUSIC CLASS. I used Wake Me Up font from KG Fonts and clip art from Whimsy Clips with music notes added to them. I absolutely LOVE the way this turned out and it really catches people's attention.


The second 'bulletin board' also has aluminum foil as a background, but then uses tulle as a border. (Tulle was on sale for less than $1 a yard, so I just HAD to get some) The bulletin board reads "MUSIC Makes me a SMART COOKIE". You can purchase this bulletin board from Cara at Miscellaneous Me.


My side wall is a giant temporary wall, so it is entirely tack-able. I covered it with four bulletin boards.


First, "A Recipe for Great Singing" bulletin board from Treble in the Music Room. I also purchased the same clip art, so I could fill in some of the spaces. You can purchase the clip art she used HERE.


Second, "The SCOOP on the LINES and SPACES" bulletin board. I created this bulletin board myself. It is not currently something for sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, but if you'd like to see it I may consider putting it there.


Third, "SWEET HARMONY TOGETHER" bulletin board is just a bulletin board of all my instrument family posters. You can purchase these posters in my Teachers Pay Teachers store - HERE.


Finally, my vocab wall is more vocabulary posters from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.


The front of my room has my classroom incentive chart. (You can learn more about that HERE.) The Baking Up Success bulletin board will be where I keep track of progress this year. After reaching the top of the chart each grade will have a cupcake added to their chart.


Cupcake Lane is made up of wrapping paper as a background with electric tape as a border. The cupcakes are held up with velcro, so I can switch them out. This is another item that is not currently for sale, but if I get requests for it I may add it.


My hand signs poster is almost an exact replica of THIS FREEBIE in my shop.


Then my door is sweet and simple with clip art from The Enlightened Elephant.


PHEW! Hope you enjoyed all of the pictures. If you liked this post, look forward to Part 2 with school number 2! (Updated: Click here to check it out!)

How to Create a Keyboard Bulletin Board

Many of you have probably seen the bulletin board I created several years ago in one of my classrooms. It is one of my most popular pins and one of my all time favorite bulletin boards. It was inspired by an idea on Tracy King's Bulletin Board website.


Some of you may be wondering just how hard this is to create yourself and where to start. Well, here are the steps I followed to re-create the look at my second school.







And that is it! You have a complete bulletin board.

If you try this tutorial I would love to see your results!
Thanks for reading!

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!