Music Room Word Walls

Aug 21, 2015 | Bulletin Boards, Movement Word Wall, Music and Movement, Music Education, Music Room, Music Word Wall | 1 comment

 

 
No matter what, when August rolls around, I know my summer is over!  My district doesn’t require me to be back in school before August 31st, but any teacher will tell you that they’ve been in their classroom for weeks leading up to that day.  I’ve been spending 2-3 days a week in my classroom getting furniture back in place, putting up bulletin boards and working on my curriculum maps.  I like that I can work in my classroom on my own schedule, a few hours at a time.
 
 
One of the things I worked on this week was my Music Room Word Wall.  I gave it a facelift this summer by adding additional vocabulary, symbols and images where possible.  We all present music vocabulary in different ways – some put all the vocabulary up, some organize vocabulary by grade and others only reveal vocabulary as they have covered the word in class.  I am the “put it all up” teacher, but I have a reason!  My students have music once every 3 days.  I want my students to have access to what they need to teach themselves, ask questions, try new things as they are able.  We all know students learn at different rates and in different ways.  Who am I to limit what they see or connect to in my room?  Often times, my word wall is referenced in our lesson as I can’t always predict when a word or concept will be asked about.
 
 
My Music Room Word Wall is organized alphabetically, but I also color-code it by music element.  I think the visual of color-coding vocabulary helps students sort by melody, rhythm, timbre, etc.  My students refer to our word wall throughout each music class to help them access the myriad of labels and vocabulary used in instruction.
 
 

Another important part of our music instruction is movement.  For my Kindergarten and First Grade students, creative movement and Laban movement are integral to our music learning.  In Second Grade, we begin to experience movement through folk dancing and creating our own dances.  Again, because of our schedule, I needed a way to access students’ previous learning quickly and a movement word wall was the perfect way to do this!  We can review terms we’ve used in movement, we can review folk dance steps, discover new ideas to move our bodies, and we can choose specific dance steps to try when creating our own dances.  Our Movement Word Wall is as important to instruction as our Music Room Word Wall!

 
And of course, I gave my Movement Word Wall a facelift this summer too!  It is color coded by movement type and comes in three different color schemes!  There are images of some of the movements, where possible.  You can see my Move It! Word Wall above.
If you interested in either of my word walls, you can check them out on TeachersPayTeachers.  They are perfect for any music teacher, but contain much of the vocabulary for the Music Learning Theory friendly classroom.
How do you reinforce music or movement vocabulary in your room?  Do you put it all out there or reveal a bit at time?  Do your organize vocabulary by grade level or use one list for all of your students?  There’s no right or wrong answer – we all do what we feel best for our students and our instructional parameters.  Let me know below!

1 Comment

  1. Linda
    Linda on August 21, 2015 at 12:19 pm

    I am definitely a leave it up there person. I can't keep track of too many things at school with my crazy schedule!

    Reply

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