My elementary general music classroom has had pretty much the same setup (other than covid) for at least a decade now, but this year I had to make some dramatic changes because the screen that I teach from is now on the opposite side of the room! It has honestly been fun to be able to rethink my setup so I'm excited to share a bit more detail about my classroom space than I have been the last few years.
First here is a quick spin around the room to get the lay of the land:
If you want to hear my talk through all of the elements of my classroom in video form, here is a video tour of the entire space with more explanations of each area- I've also written out some of the highlights with photos below if you'd rather read than watch as well.
Here's the view of the room when you first walk in the door:
To the left of the door as you walk in, I've added a small plastic shelving unit next to the ukuleles. I was primarily needing a place on this wall to keep the tissue box and hand sanitizer, but I'm excited to now have some shelves where students can drop their hoodies, water bottles, and other belongings instead of having to put them on the floor! I got 2 of these shelves from Walmart and combined them so I could have 4 shelves instead of 3, and then used the other 2 next to my teacher desk (which you can see in the photo above). The shelving unit also comes with wheels, actually, but I wanted them to be stationary so I just left the wheels off.
This was sortof a "why didn't I do this sooner?!?" moments but I also moved the 2 tracking sheets for keeping track of when the classroom jobs rotate through the color team groups they sit in and when classes get to the top of the black, white, or all piano keys in the classroom management point system, onto the same magnet board where I have the jobs and the piano keys themselves. You can see what my board used to look like, and read about how I made the board itself, in this post. I now have my Kindergarten illustrated learning objectives next to the magnet board as well.
Next to the ukuleles I have the table students use as a writing surface when we're doing a writing activity, with 2 different calming corners on either side. The table also holds caddies of supplies like dry erase markers, colored pencils, and crayons organized by color team. I used to have just one calming corner but I wanted to split the books up into two crates to make them easier to get in and out, and I realized I could set up two spaces for those times when two different students need to separate and take a minute to get themselves together. I also have some posters with different coping strategies and breathing guides, and for the side with the books for older readers I also have a bin with some notecards and pencils so students can write down what's going on when I can't have a private conversation right away, and both sides also have noise canceling headphones that students can use while they're there or grab them to use during class if they need them. You can read about how I incorporated noise canceling headphones for the first time last year as a tool for students who need them in this post.
Next to that is my main classroom seating for 1st-6th grade (Kindergarten mostly sits on the floor). I have the giant grade level expectations posters on the wall behind the chairs, and the chairs are organized in 6 rows of 4 chairs each, marked with colored duct tape on the floor to group them into "color teams" which I use for everything from organizing writing supplies to assigning classroom jobs.
At the front of the room I have my electric piano and next to that, a table with a rainbow table skirt around it so I can hide the two bass xylophones I have stored underneath. Above that table are the world map and elements of music anchor charts, and next to that are the hand signal posters for water/ bathroom/ tissue on the left side of the screen. On the other side of the screen are the picture frames for each grade where I write the learning objectives for that day's lesson, and the dry erase board underneath that I use for writing the student-generated success criteria as I go through the lesson. Next to that are the "respect" posters and "MUSIC" letter board that I use to keep track of class points, with my music stand that serves as my command center in front of those.
Next to that is my giant blue chalkboard wall :) I have my solfege posters on the pillar to the left of the wall, and my instruments of the orchestra posters above it. I have a black rolling cart with clipboards, pencils, and erasers, plus bins to keep any manipulatives or other small group supplies I need for that day's lessons, organized by color team, and the bass drum for band class tucked behind the rolling whiteboard. The clear bins on the floor hold my emergency sub plans, and my teacher toolbox is on top of the piano. Next to the piano I have a rolling rainbow drawer set with one drawer for each grade to keep my master copies and any student work or forms they turn in, Next to that is my small teacher work area, and then the boomwhackers are hung on the wall next to that.
The open shelving wall has hardly changed at all! The only thing I really changed was the labels on the shelves where I write the names of the instruments so that students can get things more independently- you can see a closeup of those in the video tour above but they are just address label stickers. Kindergarten sits on the circle spots you see on the floor on this side of the room, and I use the same spots whenever we are doing a circle activity with the older grades as well- because they have the same 6 colors I can easily have students find a spot that matches their color team to give them some choice without as much arguing over who will stand where.
So that's it! It has been a long time since I wrote a post this long but I hope I've included all the information you may be curious to hear about. If there's anything I didn't cover or that you want to know more about, though, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. If you want to use the same rainbow patterns posters that I have in my classroom, you can get printable files for those here.
