Website Wednesday: Made for Music Teachers

Because I am still knee-deep in organizing and getting my stuff together in my new room, I am very interested in what others do to get their rooms together. I love looking at how others organize, and I often strive for the same type of coordination in my own clinic area. So, when I am stumped, I go to the internet. Made for Music Teachers has a post that really makes me think about what I'm trying to do in my own space.

I like the idea of having all related things together (that makes logical sense to me). I am currently sorting my stuff into four different categories - explore, listen, learn, and therapy. Each corner of the room will have a different focus.

One corner will be for exploration. For me, this includes sensory exploration beyond that of listening. I have a large cabinet that holds my tubs of bells, pom poms, sensory bottles, sound bottles, and lots of other things as well. I'm going to take my electronic instruments for that center/station/area of the room.

Over on the fairy tale wall, I am going to set up a listening station. Right now, I am hoping for a computer that will play music (but not be internet accessible). I have audio splitters so more than one student will be able to listen to the music simultaneously. I may need to find some CD+RW discs, but I should be able to have some listening tasks to go along with my simple themes.

Moving around the room, there is a learn place under the ship picture. That is where the large instruments are located. I expect that clients will complete puzzles, try out different instruments, and put together knowledge-focused tasks and other things in that area.

The last section of the room is my therapy space. All of the stations/centers/areas will have goals and objectives for each client, but I am going to focus on specific therapeutic goals and objectives in the large group area with me. When we do stations, I'll be working on the active musicking while the other stations are less musical in output.

I got some good news yesterday - I will get another storage area for my Orff instruments and my other large drums. I can bring EVERYTHING back to the music therapy space from my house!! I am very excited about this development. It really does make sense since the storage closet is inside my room and anyone else would have to tromp through my music therapy sessions to get to the room. So, I now have plenty of space for storage, but very few surfaces. I think I'll take a tip from some of the resources I've seen and make my own surfaces. I'm going to spend some time in thrift stores looking for small tables and things to paint.

I am loving the idea of having lots of space for music therapy. I am loving the challenge of putting together a new room with storage areas. I am still waiting for storage cabinets to arrive from various locations as well as for folks to move from two areas so I can move into those places, but my imagination is going full speed ahead as I am thinking about what I want and what I can actually do. There is often a world of difference between those two things.

I am off into the world of Holiday Sings and graduation ceremonies today. There will be little to no time spent organizing my room today, but there will be lots of dreaming.


Other Resources:
http://cbutler10.blogspot.com/2013/08/classroom-tour.html 
http://www.musicalaabbott.com/2016/09/music-classroom-tour-2016.html
http://emilyskodalymusic.blogspot.com/2016/09/music-classroom-tour.html
http://caldwellorganizedchaos.blogspot.com/2016/08/classroom-tour-2016-2017.html
https://misswsmusicmaterials.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/classroom-tour/ 
http://harmonymusictherapy.com/music-therapy-room/