Classroom Tour

Two weeks into the new school year, and I can honestly say that, so far, things are great!

The staff at my new school has been wonderful to work with--friendly, warm, helpful, organized, and totally dedicated to the kiddos.  The students have been pretty good, too.  It's always difficult to come in as the new music teacher, especially when they've been used to someone else, but it's been a smooth transition. 

I'm also loving my classroom.  This is the first time in my teaching career when I've had an entire classroom inside the actual school building.  Up until now, I've always either been in a portable classroom outside of the main building, or have only had half of a classroom because the other half was utilized by other specialists.  I've even traveled from room-to-room on a cart when that half of a room had to be turned into a computer lab!

So, without further ado, here's a quick-tour of my classroom:

This is the wall of my classroom where I keep all of my Orff instruments, unpitched percussion, and the piano.

A close-up view of the piano corner.  You can see that my lovely cabinet has seen its better days :)

One of my side walls.  This is where I keep all my coffee necessities, tissues, a few knick-knacks, and photos of my family.  After living the "portable life", I about died when I found out I had a sink and running water in my classroom!  Another great perk is that there's a water fountain on the sink--no more do the kiddos have to leave the room to get a drink!  Yay!

I like to call this my "media corner".  It holds student textbooks, pencils, small whiteboards, whiteboard markers, crayons, CD's, videos, iPod sound dock, etc.  I'll eventually have more trays and a variety of paper on these shelves as well.

My interactive whiteboard and projector, marker boards, and taller drums.  I've since changed the section of marker board on the left into a "learning target" board that holds the focus topics for each grade level.  I'll have to take another picture and re-post :)

My desk area.  It's too scattered and messy for my liking, but I just haven't found my groove for how I want to set up this area of the room yet.  Note the two plastic bins in the lower left corner of the picture--those are my Emergency Guest Teacher Kits.  I always keep them beside my desk and place my Guest Teacher Binder on my desk every evening before I head for home, just in case.

Something you didn't see in any of these pictures was chairs or benches.  I don't use them.  I like the majority of my room to be nice, big open space.  This works perfectly for movement/dance activities and for setting up instruments.  We usually start class by sitting down together on the floor, and after that we're either moving around, playing instruments, or standing up and singing :) 

Well, there you have it--my new digs!