Year 10 is off to a great start, and I’m excited for all the things this new school year will bring! Although I loved my beach theme last year, I enjoy decorating, and decided to change things up. What I love most about this rainforest/jungle theme is how I can lean toward the blues and greens that calm me, while still adding in fun pops of color. Because of the theme, I could have gone with a more lush look, with many more leaves and vines. However, I wanted to keep it a little simpler for my students with sensory issues. Without further ado, I’m happy to take you on a tour of my rainforest music classroom!
BACK WALL
My back wall is where I display our school-wide PBIS expectations: be safe; be respectful; be responsible. Along the windows, I added a vine garland I found on Amazon, and I added a few paper flowers, leaves, and butterflies. Above my desk, I added an inflatable parrot, which my students have decided needs a name (currently, there are two votes for Mr. Parrot, but we’ll see).
WORD WALL
Above my counter with four sinks (yes, four sinks), we have our word wall, which I organize by category. On the counter, I have my sub tub, clipboards, and Sterilite drawers for commonly-used manipulatives. The leaf-patterned labels I used here are available in my Tropical Rainforest Music Room Decor Bundle. Underneath three of the sinks, I’ve used tension rods and cut pillowcases to cover the pipes and boomwhacker storage.
MAIN WALL
This corner of the room is my command center. The white cart from Michael’s holds all of the puppets, books, and other things I’m currently using, as well as my magnetic whiteboard manipulatives. On the doors, I posted my dynamics posters, and my behavior chart. Each class has a clothespin, which they clip up a piano key after each class if they do their best that day. Once they reach the end of their keyboard, they earn ten minutes of choice time.
Then, there’s the tree. I originally purchased these monkeys with velcro hands on Amazon, and wanted to hang them from things around the room. Eventually, I realized the best way to do that would be to add a tree. It’s all crumpled butcher paper and staples, so it cost me nothing to make. I added in some butterflies and flowers made from colored cardstock, and it really came to life.
I like to have my hand signs displayed prominently in my classroom, so they’re above the SMART Board. More vine garland and a snake are draped over the board, as well. The snake was very easy to make out of cardstock and googly eyes. If you’d like instructions, here’s a blog post I found while searching Pinterest. By the way, what did we ever do without Pinterest?
Speaking of Pinterest ideas, the waterfall is probably my favorite. Again, it’s just butcher paper and some cardstock flowers, leaves, and butterflies, but it adds so much to the room. Next to the waterfall are the dry erase pockets where I post the objectives for each grade level.
INSTRUMENT WALL
I’m trying something new with my Orff instruments this year. Each instrument has its own number in vinyl. On the wall behind them are small labels that show the students where each number instrument goes when they are done playing. I’ll write more on this new system very soon. Also, thanks to some brilliant music teachers on Facebook and Instagram, I’m trying PenPals as mallet holders. So far, I love it!
The last area of my room to share with you is this little corner. At the beginning of the year, there’s a lot of empty space on this counter. However, this corner is where I store all of the recorders for my third graders. In a few months, about 80 recorders will sit here. Above the counter are posters of the instruments, sorted by family. Students refer to these posters throughout the year during our learning.
REFLECTIONS
My kids and I love the new look in our music classroom. Because I keep all of my classroom storage within a certain color scheme, I can use them regardless of my theme. By the end, I spent about $35 on decor items, and that was all my preference (vines, parrot, monkeys, and cardstock). All I had to do was print, laminate, and post the majority of the decor. Easy peasy!
But there is one thing I would do differently if I could go back in time. Out of all of the decorations I incorporated in this theme, the one that took the longest to do was the paper flowers. Truthfully, f I’d known how long it would take me, I probably would have printed out pictures of flowers rather than creating 3D ones. I’m not patient or talented with a glue gun enough to spend hours creating tropical flowers via YouTube tutorials. Other than that, setting up my tropical rainforest/jungle themed music classroom was a fun experience! If you’d like to create a jungle or rainforest music classroom of your own, you can find my decor bundle here.
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