July Favorites 2019

Another month has flown by! I have so many highlights to share this month- I hope you find some inspiration as we head into back to school season. As always I'm sharing selections from my Instagram feed to highlight some of my "favorites" of the month- if you aren't already, please come find me on IG here. I'd love to connect with you there!

1. #HipHopPlaylistChallenge

If you haven't already, I hope you'll join in this challenge that I've put together with HipHopMusicEd this summer. It's a way to encourage all of us as music teachers to listen to some more hip hop for our own enjoyment and professional development while getting new listening recommendations from seeing what others are listening to! Head to this post to get all the details on how you can get involved- it's so easy but it has been so helpful for me already!

2. Classroom Organization

My school year doesn't start until the end of August but I've been working ahead on tweaking some of my classroom organization and if you know me at all you know how happy that makes me!!  I'm so excited to share more details about my new systems I've set up for this year- stay tuned for a post on my classroom coming soon! If you want to read about how I use the 6 rainbow colors you see for anything and everything though, I recently wrote about it in this post here. It is a game-changer!

3. Inherited Treasures

Yes, I did have the same item as a "favorite" last month. I can't believe I'm saying this again but I had ANOTHER music teacher pass along a huge selection of incredible resources this month- this time I got tons of books and recordings! I am so blown away by the generosity of my friends, and I am so excited for the new resources I have to use in my classroom!!

4. Music Education Blog Posts

I love finding inspiring and helpful blog posts from other authors to share each Friday. If you missed any of these from the past month, I hope you'll read them by clicking on the pictures below. I share these every Friday on my Facebook page and on my Fermata Fridays Pinterest board if you want to stay up-to-date on the articles I find!

What were your highlights from the month of July? What are you looking forward to in August? For all of us gearing up for a new school year, best wishes for an amazing year ahead!!

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How to Set Up Your Elementary Music Room

One of the most important tasks we face in back to school season is setting up our classrooms. Creating a welcoming, functional, and equitable learning environment is so important to the success of our students! Today I want to share my top priorities that I consider when I'm setting up (and continuously tweaking!) my music room setup.

The most important thing to remember when you're thinking about how to set up your classroom, no matter what, is how to help your students be most successful in your space. That's the thought behind every single one of the considerations I go through as I plan my classroom environment. Here are some specific aspects of classroom setup that are important to creating a room that's most conducive to student success:

1. Clutter

I find the more years I spend in a classroom, the more I tend to pare down! You'd think it would be the other way around, but as I learn which things I need and which I don't, my goal is always to get rid of as much as I can- the visuals on the walls, for sure, but more importantly the furniture. What can I move against a wall? Which items can I remove from the room entirely? Freeing up space is so important to avoid feeling claustrophobic, and gives more space for movement, small group work, and other important activities we all want to include in our classes.

Besides getting rid of stuff, though, organizing the things you do have can also make a big difference in clearing up clutter. Put like items together in bins instead of having everything sitting out on a shelf or in a giant drawer. A box of maracas looks a lot less cluttered than a pile of them! And of course organizing things like this has the added benefit of making things easier to use and find.

2. Student Eye Level and Reach

For students to be the most successful in your classroom they need to be able to do things independently, like get out instruments for themselves, or reference visuals on their own. So as you think about where to store and display things, think about what age (height) of student needs to be able to access them- I keep the instruments that I'm comfortable with my youngest students using, like egg shakers and rhythm sticks, on the lowest shelves. The same applies to visuals- I use ukuleles only with my 6th graders, so the ukulele posters can go somewhere that the younger ones can't see as easily.

3. Flow 

How do you typically transition between one type of activity to another? Where do students walk to enter and exit the room? Which supplies do you most often use in certain parts of the room? Walk through the space in the way students will for different types of lessons and see if it makes sense. Think, too, about what students will be near when they have down time, like waiting in line. Visually interesting things are great but maybe not tantalizing instruments that you've asked them not to touch! Sometimes it's unavoidable- my open shelving where I keep almost all of my instruments is right next to the door that students use to enter and exit. If you are going to put students in a difficult situation, try to give them as many tools as possible to be successful- in my case that has meant marking a line on the floor where I expect students to stand when they line up, and keeping that line far enough away from the shelves so that they are less likely to lean on them while they're standing in line.

4. Themes/ Decor

The classroom needs to be appealing and welcoming to as many of your students as possible! While I'm not going to say that decorative themes are counterproductive or useless, I will say that it's important to find themes that are as universally-appealing as possible. Shiplap and florals may be great for your home office, but will it appeal to all of your students? My guess would be no. I think specifically about students whose taste and style are most different from my own and try to make my room appealing to them- I know I will naturally appeal to sensibilities that are similar to my own but I have to be conscious of those that are most different from my personal style.

In general visual themes that are more general are going to be more universally appealing- I don't have a "theme" so much as a color scheme, which is basically bright primary colors. But there's nothing wrong with inserting some quirks to make the room feel more playful- I have stuck with the few minion-themed elements I have in my room for so long because I've found they're universally appealing to a wide range of styles, personalities, and ages.

It's also important to consider what kinds of people you are representing and normalizing in your visuals- do you have a bunch of pictures of white men or are there faces of all different ages, genders, races, and religions? This is a whole separate, huge topic that is critical but requires a lot more space than I can give it in this post- click here to go to my series on this topic.

5. Seating

Think very carefully about student seating- at least where students are going to tend to spend the most time in your room. In my opinion chairs are worth the added clutter for older (taller) students, for students with physical limitations, and for students wearing skirts and dresses. Sitting on the floor for long periods of time just is not comfortable for those student groups, and will be more of a distraction than an enhancement of their learning. If you can't get chairs in your room for one reason or another, you'll want to think carefully about how to accommodate the needs of those students- is there a way to have some alternative seating options like stools or benches? Or maybe you just need to give students the option of standing- if so, where can students who want to stand be so they're not blocking other students' view?

I'm also a firm believer in assigned seating for music classrooms. Because of how infrequently students come to our classrooms, having an assigned place to go increases predictability and structure. I also think a good seating arrangement can make a huge difference in student success- you can read all about all the different things I take into consideration to make my seating charts in this post.

What are your top considerations when you're setting up your classroom? If you want to see my most recent classroom tour, click here (the photos in this post are actually from a few years ago!). Don't have a classroom? MusicOnACart is a wonderful resource for music teachers working without a room of their own, including lots of tips for setting up your cart!

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#HipHopPlayListChallenge

As I continue my work towards equity in my classroom, hip-hop is something I still have so much to learn about. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone among music teachers in needing to better understand the world of hip-hop. Earlier this summer I shared my summer listening list for music teachers with suggestions for ways to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone and listen to genres of music we aren't as familiar with. The response to that post was overwhelming! So now it's time to hold ourselves accountable and take action.

Today I'm teaming up with HipHopMusicEd to challenge everyone to the #HipHopPlaylistChallenge!

Joining the challenge is easy: listen to a hip-hop song. Share what you're listening to with all of us by filling out the information about the song in this survey (you may have to do a little background research if you don't know your hip-hop styles!). Then go listen some more and fill it out again!

The great thing is we can all find new music to listen to by seeing what everyone else is listening to as well- you can view the results of the survey above to see the other responses, and we've also created a collaborative playlist on Spotify where you can see more music to listen to.

This is amazing (and free) professional development for us as music teachers- it's so important for us to become more familiar with the genre and the culture that surrounds the music- so no need to worry about limiting yourself to only classroom-appropriate songs. Our hope is that this can turn into a resource for teachers, but hopefully also begin to spark other conversations as a result, including new ways to effectively bring hip-hop into our music classrooms.

If you want to read about some basic, simple ways to incorporate hip-hop into music classes of all types, as well as just a few examples of classroom-appropriate songs, here is the post I wrote on the subject last fall. I'm hoping through this challenge we can expand on these ideas much further.

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How to Assign Seats in the Music Room

I am a big fan of assigned seating for elementary music class. Because students don't come to my room every day, predictability is important. And with such short class periods, anything that speeds up transitions is a win in my book! The right seating arrangement can also make a huge difference in how well students learn, how comfortable they feel in my class, and how smoothly the classes run. So if you're going to assign seats, it needs to be done well! Today I'm sharing all the different factors I consider when making my seating arrangements.

Because getting the seating arrangements right is so important to me, I spend a lot of time contemplating them and setting them up before the first day of school. This is one area where we as music teachers have the advantage of knowing most of our students from the previous year! Of course if you're at a new school you don't have that luxury (and I always have a new set of Kindergartners plus a handful of new students in each class)- I'll talk about what I do in that case at the end of this post.

IEP's/ individual learning needs
Of course the very first thing I look at when I'm making my seating charts is the accommodations pages of all my students' IEP's and other individual plans. Some seating accommodations don't apply to me because they don't have desks, but for things like vision difficulties it's important to make sure I'm compliant with those and meeting any individual needs students may have!

level of need for attention
My second highest priority is the level of need/ want for attention. Over the years I've learned that some students feel more comfortable if they aren't too close to me- either they need the psychological/ emotional space, or they get less overwhelmed by the noise level when they're further away from me and my sometimes loud singing! There are also, of course, some students that need a lot more individual attention, and I can give them that less intrusively if they're closer to me.

need for space/ movement
This is somewhat similar to the first two, but I also think specifically about those students who tend to move around in their chairs, need to stand up more frequently, or just take up more physical space when they're sitting. Those students I try to put at the ends of rows or in the back so that they can get up or move around without distracting other students as much.

personality mixes
Because I have my students (besides Kindergarten) sit in rows of 4, and especially because I put a heavy emphasis on those seating groups in the running of my classroom (you can read all about that in this post), I spend probably the longest trying to put the right people next to each other and in the same group/ row. Obviously there are some students I make sure to keep away from each other if they really don't get along or if they easily distract each other. I also think about putting more outgoing students together with the quieter ones so that when they are performing or working in small groups they can help each other. I usually split up "cliques" so that they aren't excluding other students, get experience working with different people, and are less likely to get distracted from the lesson, but sometimes if there are students who are very shy or seem to be having a hard time getting comfortable in my class, I'll put them next to a friend.

singing confidence
For other musical skills it doesn't really matter that much who students are next to, but for singing it can make a huge difference! Although it's definitely not at the top of my list, I do try to make sure I have students who need to hear strong singing around them in order to sing in tune better next to the strong singers when I can. Even if it's not an issue of singing in tune, putting confident singers next to hesitant ones makes it easier for the hesitant singers to sing because their voice doesn't sound as exposed to them.

height
I used to pay a lot more attention to height than I do now. I make sure I put visuals that are really important for everyone to see at the top half of my screen so that students aren't looking over each other's heads as much. And really, there aren't too many times when they need to be looking at the board for long periods of time. Certainly I have some students who are so much shorter or taller than the rest of the class that I have to put them at the front or back, but for everyone else the other factors are much more important.

But what if I don't know the students?
If I don't know the students in advance, I don't make my seating charts until I see them on the first day. I will find out about IEP's and other individual needs from support staff and note those on my seating chart beforehand, but otherwise I wait until I see them on the first day and do some quick analyzing in the first few minutes that I see them! After doing this for over a decade I have gotten pretty good at seeing who needs the extra comfort of a friend, which cliques need to be split up, who needs more or less of my attention, and who needs to be kept apart. You can read about everything I do on the first day in this post, but when they first come in I always give them a quick introduction to me and to the room before I show them where to sit, and that's when I'm watching and analyzing.

If you want to see how my seating (and everything else) is set up in my classroom, here is my latest classroom tour. And if you want to see all the other ways I use my seating charts besides just keeping track of seating, here is a whole post on that (I use them a LOT). And of course another advantage of having assigned seating, especially for music teachers who see hundreds of students, is that it helps us learn their names more quickly- here is a post on strategies I use to help me learn student names and why I think it's so important to do so.

Do you do assigned seats in your music classes? What are your top considerations when you're making seating assignments? My thoughts have changed quite a bit on this over my years of teaching, and I would love to know what you do to try to find that perfect seating arrangement! Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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