Organizing Tips for the Music Classroom

In most elementary music programs, there is only ONE teacher but lots of activities to manage. The challenge is finding a way to manage all the pieces and parts. Let's get started.

As a music specialist, I have been lucky to work at schools where there was another music specialist, and sometimes an additional band or orchestra teacher. Most school music programs will showcase the students with grade-level presentations, musicals, holiday concerts, and travel experiences.

Music events in the music classroom and school can be organized easier with a Google sheet template.

The challenge is coordinating the scheduling and tracking of the many activities. Oftentimes, there will be a school secretary or administrator that will also help with planning and coordinating. But the norm is there aren't enough staff with extra time to do what needs to get done. Here is a link to my full BLOG with more details about the Google Sheet Activity Planner.

As a veteran music teacher, I know this isn't the only challenge but it is a starting point. Using BODY warmups in the music classroom is a great tool to bring the children into the ready zone for singing, playing instruments, and moving to music.

This set of slides is designed to provide elementary music teachers with moving and vocal exercises to have fun and improve their singing skills. The slides are arranged sequentially by difficulty level. Each slide has directions on how to use the vocal exercise. Slides can be rearranged to focus on grade levels such as k-1, 2-3, and 4-5 or any way that works in your classroom.

Included are movements such as stretch, and neck roll. Vocal warm-ups include correct breathing, tongue trill, and lip buzz. Also included are short simple melodies that use solfege, numbers, scales, and the music alphabet. These warm-ups can also be used to reinforce music concepts.

I use these warm-ups at the beginning of each class. I project the slides on the overhead projector and have a student change the slides while I am at the piano.

I discovered that a presentation clicker works with my 33 Elementary Vocal Warm Ups for Everyday Use available in Teachers Pay Teachers Google slides on my overhead projector and laptop. As a music teacher, this was game-changing for me. I used some of these warm-ups at the beginning of every class. I was able to at the piano and click through our vocal warm-ups. It also allowed me to move around the room and check in with students while warming up but keeping the momentum moving forward. Check out the video to see how it worked for me. Here is a link to check out the clicker on Amazon. I do receive a small commission.

Here are some music classroom anchor charts for note and rest values. I found this to be a tremendous help in having a visual and physical reminder of names and values at the elementary level. The charts could also be used at other grade levels as well. Includes: Whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, dotted half, and a dotted quarter.

Resource available at https://trebletreemusic.com/teacher-r....

HOW DO I USE THIS RESOURCE:

1. Download the resource.

2. Enlarge as needed for the size of your classroom, print, and laminate as needed.

3. Group in one area of the classroom for easy viewing.

4. I group the posters by most common and largest to smallest value and I use body motions to reinforce the name of each note.

Check out my Blog and Video for detailed descriptions of the motions that I use for each note value. For example Whole Note = a big motion near the floor imitating a hole in the ground Half Note = Hat on the head motion for “half”.

Elementary vocal warmups can be fun in the music room. Try using a basketball hoop and balls with a vocal warm-up. More ideas are available from... 33 Elementary Vocal Warmups for Everyday Use are available at Teachers Pay Teachers, https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Treble-Tree-Music Basketball hoops and balls are available at Amazon. https://amzn.to/3d27KB5 Disclaimer: I do get a little compensation for this product.