Winter Bulletin Boards for the Music Room

This week we got a about 3 inches of snow here in Wichita, and so I thought it was probably time I trade out my sailboat themed bulletin boards for something else.

I love to have a line/spaces bulletin board up in my room for my students to refer to, especially when we work on recorders and Orff instruments.

So I came up with "Snow is falling into place, on a line or in a space".

I envisioned snowflakes falling to the ground with the letter names in them. I went to Hobby Lobby and Target to pick up some extras for my board. I got a 60 ft. roll of silver Christmas ribbon 50% off at Hobby Lobby along with the adorable gray fabric I used for the background. This is my first fabric backed bulletin board, and I LOVE it. A little more expensive, but I can use it again and again and not have to re-cut it. I love this pattern and think it is really pretty and calming. I also picked up an icicle garland that I ended up using along the top. I also purchased pre-made Poms for the corners. Each pom is actually half a pom. I cut them in half, and stapled where I cut.

At Target, I grabbed a bag of "glitter snow blanket" to be the bottom border.

I created all of the text and snowflake letters on the computer, printed, laminated and cut out. I loved the different fonts that I got to use by doing this and that the colors were an exact color match to the snowflake clip art I used.

For the side and top border, I had to triple layer the ribbon. I love the way it looks though as opposed to the traditional bulletin board border. 

The lines of the staff are party streamers. I bought one roll several years ago and have gotten many, many boards out of it for only $0.99 or so! I use tape first to make sure the spacing is good before I staple them down, and I use some of the text to cover staples.

Want this bulletin board in your music room? Grab it here:

I am still trying to decide what to do on my other two bulletin boards. For now, they are still sporting sail boats. Let me know if you have a brilliant snow themed idea for my other boards below! 

Making Music Interactive and a Music Teacher Facebook Frenzy

Happy Wednesday,

I am linking up today with I'm Lovin' Lit's Thursday Throw Down: Ways to Make Learning More Interactive with ways to make music more interactive plus a link to some cute interactive notebook ideas for music teachers.

Usually when I think about the word "interactive" I think about technology and interactive notebooks. I haven see some really cute ideas for music interactive notebooks at Emily's blog The Sweetest Melody, but I haven't really taken the interactive notebook plunge in my music room yet (future goal for sure!).

Picture from The Sweetest Melody

Picture from The Sweetest Melody

But looking at the word, something else comes to mind.

DANCING!  and more specifically, square dancing!

There are some wonderful square dance and folk dances that you can find. I use a lot of resources by the Amidons for my students. 

When you are square dancing, you are have to listen and respond to the music (or the caller) as well as communicate (mostly non-verbally) to your partner, corner, and the other members of your square.

At my school we do a HUGE Kansas Day celebration and part of that evening is folk dancing and square dancing. Each grade performs a dance on the stage for the parents. I really want to expand this in the future to a community folk dance night, but until I get really comfortable with teaching the dances, I will just stick with the kids! :)

This is such a great, interactive way to make those connections between music and dance and preserve a part of our culture and heritage. My kids LOVE to dance, and my fifth grade boys even beg for it!

I cannot count the valuable social aspects, especially when you start early. Dancing becomes a part of their culture. They forget about the opposite sex and cooties and just have fun and try to keep up. 

If you don't have your kids dancing in the music room yet, I highly suggest trying it out! 

If you are already dancing with your kids, you might be interested in this movement and folk dancing word wall. I use it to reinforce terminology that is new to them such as "longways set", "allemande", "dosido" and lots more! 

Here are a few sample pages:

Are you a music teacher on TPT? We are currently searching for some music teachers to take part in a Facebook Frenzy in early December. Here's a little info on how it works. Basically it's an organized Facebook event that is held during a weekend where teachers offer a free item via an application that is downloaded to your business facebook account. It cannot be something that is currently offered in your TPT store. This means that anyone who comes to get your freebie simply has to "like" your facebook page, and then there is a direct link to the next music teacher's facebook page once they have grabbed your freebies. Its a great way to build up followers and collaborate with music teachers around the world. 

The requirements for this frenzy are you have to offer a Winter/Christmas themed freebie and you must have a facebook business account (if you don't have one, now would be a great time to set one up!). 

If you are interested in joining the Music Teachers Facebook Frenzy follow this link:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=29363

This is a preliminary sign up, just to make sure we have enough music teachers to participate. A real sign up will follow soon!

If you are not on TPT and want to get started, here are some tips. Feel free to use my referral link. I'd be happy to help you get your store up and running in any way that I can! Just copy and paste this into your browser. It will look like the normal TPT site, but it tracks that it is from my referral link.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:LJervis

If you're not interested in selling, you may still be interested all of the fantastic freebies that will be available during the frenzy so make sure that you are following my Facebook page, Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom or blog so you don't miss out!

Happy Thursday,

Lindsay