Beginning the Year With a Bang

• Cheryl Baker
• Posted 8/22/22
• 0 comments

With so many considerations — especially for new or relocating teachers, setting yourself up for a successful year can feel like an overwhelming task. But you can the ground running on the first day of school by doing some thoughtful planning and preparation in these key areas:

• Overall priorities
• Room design
• Behavior management
• Lesson planning
• Assessment
• Self care 

Priorities: First Things First

Find and learn the program of studies.

If your school district has a program of studies (POS) or music curriculum, or even if your state has a music curriculum, your first order of business is to learn what is in that document. What are you required to cover in each grade level? Most curricula are so extensive, that it is nearly impossible to completely cover everything that is listed. Nonetheless, you need a working knowledge of what’s included there so you can plan your lessons accordingly.   

If your district doesn’t have a POS, find or create a long-range plan, a quarter plan, and a month-by-month plan. What do they need to know first, second, third, etc.? 

Design first-month activities to discover: 

• What do the students know already about music elements? 
• What are the students proficiencies?   
  • Playing barred instruments/unpitched instruments 
  • Folk dancing 
  • Improvising 
  • Reading rhythms 
  • Reading notes on the staff 
  • Know durations of notes 

Other things that you will want to know: 

• Have they had music in the past? How much for how long? 
• Do students bring their laptops to music? Is this a one-to-one school? 
• Where are the students from (i.e., What are their cultures? What are their home languages?)

What are the expectations from the administration?

• How many performances do they want per year? 
• What has been done in the past? 
• What kinds of special groups have they had – chorus, Orff ensemble, drum ensemble, folk dancing, drama/musical? 
• If they had special ensembles, did any of them meet during the school day? 
• Is there any extracurricular money available for groups that meet outside contract time? 

Inventory

• What instruments do you have? 
• How many mallets do you have? 
• Do you have guitars or ukuleles? 
• Soprano recorders or alto recorders? 
  • Which grades will be playing? 
  • Does the school buy the recorders or do the parents have to buy them? 
  • Where do you order them from? 
  • How do you turn in or collect money for them? 
  • What brand of recorders have they used in the past? 
• Sound equipment for amplification – is there any? Training to set it up? 
• Is there a performance space? Stage/gym/outside? 
• Are the instruments in need of repair? 
• Is there a budget available for the music department? 
  • For chorus music? 
  • For replacing broken instruments/getting parts for instruments? 
  • For building your instrumentarium? 
• Is there a whiteboard? Smart Board? Projector? TV? VCR/DVD player? 
• What kind of sound equipment do you have for playing music? 
  • Stereo, CD player, speakers for your computer or iPad 
• Is there sound amplification for your voice in class? (wireless lavalier mic) 

Make Connections 

• Visit all the classroom teachers. 
• Get to know the custodians and office staff (learn their names) and how to get in touch with them. 
• Connect with the specialists in your building – music, PE, library, art, and others. 
• Connect with the special education staff. Read IEPs and all other documentation on behavior plans for students who have them.  Ask lots of questions. 
  • Are there aides that come with certain students? 
  • Will there be mainstreamed students from the self-contained classes? 
  • What things do you need to know about certain kids 
    • Runners/biters/hitters/emotional/sound sensitive 
• Meet with counselors, social workers, psychologists, and parent liaisons 
  • Find out what they do and how they can help you. 

Room Design

Figuring out what goes where is job one when you start to get things organized in your classroom. Every room is different, and you may or may not have storage options. You may need to decide what you need to have out in the room for that week or that lesson and then put away or hide anything that you don’t need. Here is a checklist of things you need to decide: 

• Where do the kids sit? (floor, chairs, desks, risers?) 
• Where do they enter and exit? Do you have two doors or one? 
• Where do they line up? 
• Where should they put their stuff (jackets, lunch boxes, water bottles, recorders, folders, etc.) 
• Do you have room to keep the barred instruments set up all the time? 
• Are the unpitched instruments sorted and labeled? 
• Do you have places to display and access instruments? 
• What supplies will the students need regularly? 
  • Pencils, whiteboards, markers, wipers, crayons, erasers, scissors 
  • What is your procedure for passing stuff in or out? 
  • Will they need a folder for music? 
  • Where do they put their folder and recorder? 
• What are potential traffic jam areas? 
  • Pencil sharpener 
  • Clipboards, whiteboards, markers and wipers, pencils, erasers? 
  • Draw a spaghetti diagram to find the problem areas. 
• Where do students turn in written work? Will it be the same all year? Will there be a bin for that?  Is it labeled and easily found? 
• Where are the closest bathrooms to your room? What will your “bathroom usage” procedure be? 
• Is there a water fountain in your room? What is the procedure for getting a drink?   

Behavior Plan and Procedures

Setting Up Expectations

This is the hardest part to talk about and plan for. You need to have rules that you must have students follow to maintain a learning environment. You want the students to feel safe, to take care of themselves, and to take care of each other. You want them to respect school property and leave the music equipment and supplies in the music room. 

You may want to have a place where students can go be quiet if they need some quiet time. Some people call it “Take a Break”, “Rest Area”, or “Time Out”. It’s a place where a student can go to collect themselves if they are out of control or if they get upset and get emotional about something. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing to get to visit this place. I have a big red M&M on the side of my room. Big red is there to comfort you, listen to your story, and give you time to get yourself together. There may or may not be a chair by or with Big Red. I also post a sign with a whole rest on it. Helps to have a sense of humor sometimes when things get tense. 

Once you have decided on your rules (however you do that), you must teach the students the rules. You must remind them of what you expect every class time until they are doing things without being reminded. Once the basic rules (or some people use “agreements”) are in place, the rest are procedures. How do we pass out instruments? How do we transition from one place to another (instruments to sitting, sitting to partners)? How do we share an instrument with a partner? How do we pass something to someone next to us (instruments, supplies, etc)? How do we clean up or put away things that we are using? 

You will remind/review/reteach these procedures all year. Don’t expect them to remember something you went over in the first few weeks of school. They might remember some of it but probably won’t remember everything. Save yourself the headaches and having to have an emergency stop because they are “doing it wrong”! 

Every school will be different. Every class may be slightly different. Your students come from different teachers who do things differently than you do. They are also teaching these procedures. You have to teach them in your class too. It is too hard for you to remember each teacher’s style of managing behaviors, so you need to develop your way of dealing with all of these things. 

The biggest thing to remember about students and their behaviors is that they are testing you to find out what will happen when things go wrong. They need to know how far is too far for you, and what you will do if that happens. I try to remind myself that this student is not doing whatever they are doing to me, they are just doing that behavior. It may not be about what has happened in my class – but rather could be a holdover from something that happened outside of my classroom. It’s my job to deescalate the behavior and calm the child so that they are in control and able to reflect on what happened. If you come from a caring, loving mindset, it will all work out. 

Worst Case Scenarios:  The ‘What If’ List

You can’t be prepared for everything, but you can start a list and add to it as the year(s) go by it will help you stay calm when something does happen. Plan for the unexpected, just in case!  You will be required to watch many training videos at the beginning of the year about many things that you need to know how to handle. The minor things that happen in the room are things that can be handled in the classroom with or without a trip to the health room. Make sure to pick up a bunch of kid-size Band-Aids for your classroom. 

• Bathroom accidents 
• Blood – nose bleeds and cuts 
• Sickness – vomit, tummy aches, headaches, etc. 
• Trip and fall 
• Emotional outbursts 

Lesson Plans

Having a routine is a great way to structure your lessons. Deciding what elements to include in each lesson per week is something you will spend most of your time on when you first begin teaching. My best recommendation is to stick to one primary objective for each lesson, while also adding a variety of activities that the students will engage in to experience and learn about that element of music. For example, you probably will sing something during every class. You may have warm-up activities for reading or responding to rhythms, something that they will listen to and potentially use to explore some movement or dance. You may have them playing some kind of instrument during every lesson, or working in center activities during some classes so that they have a variety of activities to explore. Decide the skill that you are building during that lesson or that week, and then make sure each class can do it before you start more complex activities. 

• Primary classes 
  • Establish a routine 
  • Create or find cue songs (hello/goodbye songs, following the leader, time to clean up, etc) 
  • Keep things moving – short activities with different activity levels. 
  • Stay calm, be friendly but firm, expect the best and teach procedures. 
  • The younger they are (or the more immature), the more activities you need to have.   
• Intermediate classes 
  • Basically the same kinds of things should be included in these lessons, but you will be able to spend more time on one activity.  3-5 activities per lesson are standard, depending on the length of your classes. 

Assessment & Grading

Every school district is a little different in how you will grade your students. Some districts use the traditional ABCDF grades, others O S N (outstanding, satisfactory, needs improvement) or E S N (excellent, satisfactory, needs improvement). My district uses numbers 1-4, 4 being the best grade.  Grading time always sneaks up faster than you anticipate so start collecting grades as soon as possible. It is always a good idea to develop a rubric for each category that you are grading. What does a 4 or A or O or E look like/sound like? Share that with your students so they know what you are looking for when you are grading. They will try hard to earn a good grade if they know what they have to do. 

Some districts have specialists give one overall grade for each quarter, while others break it up into several grades. My district has us give each student a grade for singing, playing instruments, movement, literacy, responding and connecting (basically listening and talking about music), and effort.   

Some tips on grading a room full of students: 

• Colored 3×5 cards 
• Mardi Gras beads  
• Seating chart with grading boxes 
• Video 

I use the colored 3×5 cards to grade students who are at the instruments (specifically barred Orff instruments). I have them play and sing the song until they seem to all be playing pretty well. When I am ready to grade them, I have them perform the song as a group, and I walk around the room and place the card by the student or on the instrument.  Once I have given a card to everyone, they take the card back to their seats, and I ask them to hold up their card so I can write down their grade. Then, they bring their card back to me. 

The Mardi Gras beads I use for grading when they are moving around the room such as a folk dance with a partner. I slip one necklace around at least one of the partners to indicate that they are getting the top grade. If they don’t get any beads, then I grade them once they sit down in their assigned seats (if there are partners, I ask who their partner was). 

If the students are sitting or standing in their assigned places, I use a seating chart that has small boxes under each larger box for the name. I have a small set of boxes for me to indicate the date the grade was collected and for which category. 

Take Care of Yourself

The first few years of teaching are overwhelming. You need to make sure that you take care of yourself. Do not talk over students who are talking. Find ways to give cues non-verbally rather than always using your voice. Sing instructions instead of speaking them. 

• Sleep 
• Hydration 
• Voice stress avoidance (time for vocal rest) 
• Stress release 
• Find a mentor and a buddy teacher 
• Work smarter not harder 
• Start slowly and build your program 
• Plan, plan, plan 

You will also need to make sure you take care of yourself during the day. Make sure to eat to maintain your energy. Warm up your voice and your body. Plan when you can drink water and when your bathroom times will be. Plan to take a break from your classroom during your planning time or lunch to talk to other teachers. You will probably have some kind of duty at some point in the day, so plan for inclement weather (always have an umbrella handy). During your planning time, rest and recharge by staying hydrated and always keep a quick snack and some pain reliever available.