Routines You NEED as a Music Teacher

Routines to Have in Your Classroom
Managing a classroom is a BIG job, especially when you’re a music teacher and have 7+ classes moving through the room a day! Setting some routines for you and your students is a great first step to helping your classroom run smoothly!
So, today we are chatting about routines you should have in your music room and how I implement the routine in my classroom. After you’ve read through, make sure to grab this FREE Planning Your Classroom Routine checklist to start organizing your thoughts on music room routines.

Planning Your Classroom Routines Guide

For you, The Teacher 

Taking Attendance 

• Are you required to record your attendance or is it just for your information?

What I do: 

• I record my attendance on my seating chart, I am not required to submit it            

Recording Assessment 

• How often are you going to record assessments? 
• Do you have an online grade book system from your district?
• When are you going to input grades into your grade book?

What I do: 

• Record observational data on my seating plan 
• Input paper and pencil assessments right into my grade book once they’re complete 
• Input all observational assessments into my grade book once a month  

Organizing Student Work 

• Where will you keep student work that is “in progress?”
• Where are students going to hand in completed work?
• What are you going to do with work that is completed and has been assessed?

What I do:

• When students are working on projects I store the projects in Sterlite drawers 
• When students complete assignments they hand their work into the hand-in bin, and I paper clip the class assignment together. Once I have input the assessment into the grade book the completed work goes into the students’ duotangs 
• I keep student work in duo tangs, allowing me to refer to it for assessment and show it to parents during parent-teacher 
• I supply the duo tangs and students use them for Grades 1-6

Lesson planning

• When are you going to lesson plan? Monthly, weekly, daily?
• Do you need to submit lesson plans?

What I do

• I teach multi-level classes, so I plan for Kindergarten, Grade 1/2, Grade 3/4, Grade 5/6, and Band  
• Each term I plan what concepts I am going to teach 
• I plan activities, songs, and games to teach concepts every 6-day cycle 
• Concept planning slides have been a big help to me! ​

Changing bulletin boards

• What do you want to display on your bulletin boards?
• How can you make changing your bulletin boards easier? 
• When are you going to change the out 

What I do

• Have relevant information on bulletin boards that don’t need to be changed after 
• Bulletin boards that do get changed I put up on my magnetic bulletin board, things that stay up all year get put on the corkboard 
• I change out my seasonal boards during any extra time I have during teacher work days. I plan out bulletin boards that can last multiple months. 

How are you going to manage transitions?

• How are students going to transition from activity to activity in your classroom?
• How are you going to switch from one class to another?

What I do: 

• I always start with whole group activities and move to smaller groups
• Put instrument near the end of the lessons 
• I only have 1 class in my room at a time. “Incoming” kids wait in the hall until “outgoing” kids leave 
• Get students to help clean up materials and supplies 

Routines for your Students

Rules and Expectations

• What are the rules you have in your music room
• What happens when students follow the rules, what happens when they don’t follow the rules?

What I do:

• My music room rules are: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Ready, Make good choices, and Be a Participant 
• Buy them from my TPT store here!
• When classes follow the classroom expectations and get through all their to-do list they get game time 
• Students who don’t follow classroom rules lose privileges, like playing games and instruments. Older students complete think sheets if behaviour incidents are frequent

How do students enter and exit the room?

• Where do they go when they come into the classroom?
• How do they know where to sit?
• How can you get them to come in quietly?
• Where do they line up at the end of class?

What I do

• The younger students enter the classroom in a line and we all sing Come Follow Me in a Line
• When the older student come to music I meet them at the door and tell them to sit in their music spots or on a dot to make a circle 
• At the end of class, I call students by rows, by the number of siblings, or by other creative ways to line up 

How are students expected to sit?

• Where are students supposed to sit? Does it change all the time? Can they choose?

What I do

• Students have assigned seating on the carpet, I try to come up with new seating plans every 2 months 
• Students can choose where they sit when we are in a circle, but I will move students if they are disrupting learning 
• I tell the students they must sit crisscross or on their knees during learning time. When they are working on assignments that may lie down 

Going to the Bathroom

• Do they need to ask to go to the bathroom?
• When can they ask to go to the bathroom?
• How many students are allowed to go at a time?

What I do

• I allow 1 student out of the classroom at a time 
• Students are not allowed to ask to go to the bathroom when the bathroom light is on. This could be because I am teaching or because another student is in the bathroom. 
• If the bathroom light is off they can just go to the bathroom without asking

Getting Supplies

• How do students get supplies?
• Are you going to use student helpers to hand out supplies? 

What I do

• For quick, whole-class assignments I have students pass out supplies 
• For individual work, students get the assignment from me and the other supplies from the caddies as they need them.​

Getting Instruments and using instruments

• What are your rules for using instruments?
• How are you going to rotate students through instruments 
• How do the instruments get put away

What I do 

• My number 1 rule with playing instruments is “If you play before I say, you’re instrument gets taken away. ” It’s very cut and dry, but you need to make sure you follow through with it 
• If we are playing instrument over multiple days I will record what students go to play on my seat chart
• If we are using different instruments in one song I will tell the students who to switch with to ensure people get a chance to play each instrument 
• I train students early on how to move the drums and Orff instruments so they can help me put them away 

So there you have it! The routines that make my classroom run as smoothly as possible! 
Are you ready to start planning out your classroom routines? Make sure you grab the Free Music Room Routine Organizer to help you get started!
Planning your Classroom Procedures Guide

Do you need ready to go lessons to use in your classroom today? Make sure to check out the FREE Resource Library!