The First Day of School

Back to school!!!  This post really isn't going to have anything that is remotely productive for the rest of you, but I just want to tell you all that we are back in school in my district as of today.  There is just something about that first day back with all those kids looking at you and getting excited about the new school year.

There is comfort in knowing your past students so well that it doesn't surprise you when one of them is crawling like a dog around the floor during the game because he is CLEARLY not used to being back at school again.  There is comfort in the hug that you receive from the one who hugged you every time they came into music last year.  There is joy when a parent comes up to you to tell you that their son said that the thing he was most excited about for this school year was getting to see you again.  There is joy in meeting a new student for the first time and they smile and laugh when you say "Who are you and Where do you come from??" in a voice that tells them that you are just trying to be silly to make them feel welcome.  There is pride in introducing yourself to a new group of 1st graders and having a few raise their hands when you ask them if they know your name and then tell you that their big brother or sister talked about you all the time.  There is pride when you open the doors in the morning and the parents drop the child off and say "Don't worry, Miss Rains will make sure you get down there okay!"

My favorite really is getting the younger siblings for the first time in first grade.  Today we didn't do much in first grade music, because it is my tradition that I have every student sing me their name.  In between rows we sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and I start to take out words and the little ones giggle like someone is permanently at their sides tickling them.  I watched one of those younger siblings today, who I knew from when they were just a baby, and my heart sang when the smile never left his face.  He giggled, he sang his name, he laughed through singing "If you're Happy and You Know It Shake Your Booty" (because that is the best version... that and do the disco), and I could tell that all that his siblings said before came true before his eyes.  Miss Rains really is as crazy as they've said she was all these years.

I LOVE the first day of school.

Binder Organization

I thought that I would do a couple things in this entry to talk about organization for an elementary music teacher.  This is HUGE!!!  Most schools don't have either a set curriculum or a set of resources for the music teacher, so it becomes a hodge podge of creating your curriculum from what you know and what you can make or get with your tiny budget!  Being inspired by a 1st grade teacher who puts all her stuff into binders, I decided to do the same thing.  I seperated by binders into the following categories...

The reason why I had Instruments and Rhythms in their own binder is because we do both in every grade level in my district, so they have a LOT of resources.

In each binder there are lesson plans that go with the subject.  That way you can just add lessons as you come up with new ideas every year and take out ones that weren't successful.

All of the resources I use from books were also copied.  This way you don't have to go through your books looking through to find where it is.  You have the resource written down on the top corner (5th grade book, 4th grade book, Railroad CD, etc.), and I highlighted the CD track number so I could easily play the song for the kids.

I also like to use power points in my lesson, so I print out the power points so I know what is coming next and when I've got to switch slides nd whatnot.  All making your life a little easier!

Then you've got tests and projects in there as well, so you have a master to make copies from if you need them.

Again, all of this is so you can have everything in one spot when you are lesson planning.  Then, paired with my lesson plan book, I look through the week and decide what to do.  In the example below, you can see that there are some classes with X's in them.  That's what I do when I know that I won't be seeing a class that time.  So 2K and 2G miss their class the first time that week, and resume with Steady Beat lesson 1 on their 2nd meeting time. 

Having all these lessons to pick from is also good because I KNOW that there are some lessons that we put in as filler lessons for those classes that never seem to miss music.  When you have it all laid out in front of you, you can then decide that since one class is behind, they can skip a certain lesson or game and still get the objective that you are aiming for!  Anyways, that was my random idea for the new school year, and we'll see how it works out!!

My Classroom

I thought that I would let everyone check out my new theme for the school year!!  Our school theme is genres, jumping on board with the Common Core Standards and working on academic focus.  Well, of course, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk to the kids about musical genres as well.

The above picture is what is going on in the front of my classroom, my "desk" (two random tables) is there on the left, with my randomness bulletin board that has my schedule.  The black cart next to it houses my document camera every year, which is quite nice.  Then the top runner has Country, Pop, Jazz, Classical, and Rock artist around it so kids can see all different people in music.

Then we have the back of my classroom with the digital piano, some boomwhackers, and our theme title.  The blue stripe on the back is an idea I stole off Pinterest of having a timeline.  I'm going to have the kids talk about what they learned at the end of each unit and we're going to put up some cool stuff for what we've done.

The white bookcase (a new donation from my third grade pal Nicki) has crayon boxes, markers, white boards, dry erase markers, white boards, clipboards, and basically everything that the kids need to work on all their stuff in class.

On this front board, I'm going to put different reminders up about upcoming dates and tests and things like that.  I just laminated some cardstock, so I can use a vis a vis or I can use dry erase markers on it.

Here are my file folders for 2nd-5th grade.  Each class is a different color and each student has a numbered folder.  This way, when they are doing group projects or anything like that, they can just put things in their folders and it is their responsibility to make sure it is in the right place.  It's actually quite nice to have them keep track of their stuff!!

So that is my classroom basically.  My other wall has a bunch of boring cabinets that you don't want to see.  For now that's all I got going on, and I'll be posting some new stuff later on as we are getting into the school year.