Tried-and-True Classroom Management Ideas- From One Elementary Music Teacher to Another

Classroom management in the music room isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, especially when you teach hundreds of students across multiple grade levels each week. What works beautifully for one class might fall flat with another, and some classes don’t need much at all.
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In this post, I’m breaking down the core elements that every classroom management system needs to succeed, plus sharing a few systems I’ve used in my own elementary music classroom—what worked, what didn’t, and how I’ve adjusted along the way. Whether you’re looking to refresh your management strategies or just curious how another music teacher keeps things running smoothly, I hope you find a few ideas to try (or tweak!) for your own teaching space.

What all classroom management systems need
Classroom Rules: To have an effective classroom management system, students need to understand your expectations clearly. Those come from your classroom rules and routines. In my classroom, the rules are 

• Be Respectful 
• Be Responsible 
• Be Ready 
• Make good choices 
• Worry about yourself 
• Be a participant 

Connections with students: Likely even more important than your classroom rules are the connections and relationships that you have with students. It’s a lot easier to manage a classroom when your students respect you and enjoy coming to your class. 

For that to happen, they need to trust you. For me, trust comes from being consistent, showing genuine interest in their lives, and providing them with insight into you as a person outside of school. 
Some ways I build these connections in my classroom are 

• Saying good morning to students, using their names, when they come into the school
• Having a sharing time at the beginning of the class where the students and I share about our lives
• Following up on things - if students tell you on Friday that they have a dance competition on the weekend, the next time I see that student, I will ask how the dance competition went. 
• Being consistent with behaviour, what isn’t okay one day, isn’t okay another. ​

​Now, to the actual systems that I have tried and used in my classroom.
Classroom Pianos 
How it works: Each class would have a piano that matched the classroom colour. When students demonstrated the music room rules, the class went up a key on the piano. When they reached the top of the piano, which was an octave long, they had game time, where they could choose the game.
Pros

• The reward was easy and free
• Students were working together as a class to earn the game time 

Cons 

• I had to remember to move them up the piano. 
• Some classes would move up the piano in 8 classes (approximately a month), while others would take 3 months to move up the piano and earn game time, making the reward no longer relevant. 
• Because I teach multiple classes of one grade level, I had to find an extra activity for the class that wasn’t earning game time as quickly, to allow the class that was earning game time a chance to catch up on the lesson sequence.
• When they earned the game time, it didn’t always work with what I was trying to teach. Perhaps they earned it on a day when I was away, or a day when I had an assessment scheduled, or a day when we were already playing games.
• They aren’t all going to agree on the game, and you might play a lot of 4 corners or silent ball. 

A Variation:
Last year, I used this, but with a slight variation. I still had the classroom pianos, but rather than getting game time when they got to the top of the piano, each key worked a minute of game time that they could cash in at the end of the month. 
Students could earn 8 minutes of game time. Each class had to demonstrate the music room rules to earn their minute to go towards the end of the month. If students had an exceptional class, they could earn an extra minute. 

This reduced the problem of classes earning game time at inconvenient times in my lessons sequence and allowed everyone to get some extra game time each month, making the reward more timely to the positive behaviour, but it is still something that needed to be managed. 

100 Great Kids 
How it works: I created a 10x10 grid and displayed it in my classroom. I used this classroom management system from when we returned from Winter break until the 100th day of school. You can use it at any time of the year, but I suggest a specific timeframe for students to get their names on it. When I had a student in a class who was going above and beyond in classroom behaviour, I had them put their name on the 100 Great Kids board. When the board was filled up, I randomly selected 10 students to join me for an ice cream sundae party. 

Pros: 

• All I had to do was choose a student and tell them to write their name on the board. It was easy to have them do it at the end of class. 
• It had a set time frame, so I didn’t have to keep it up the entire year

Cons: 

• It was an individual rewards system, not a class so students weren’t holding each other accountable 
• Because the “winners” ended up being students from lots of classes, I needed to reward them outside of class 
• There was some expense in doing the ice cream sundae party as the reward​

Class of the Week
How it works: Each week, in my case, each six-day cycle, I choose a class that is going above and beyond in following the music room rules. The class that is chosen as the class of the week gets a reward. In the past I have done choosing where you get to sit for a class, suckers, halloween sized chocolate bars, mini ice cream sandwiches, game time, or boomwhacker play alongs. 

In the perfect world, I would do a round of class of the week at the beginning of the year, where each class gets a chance to win. Then I would bring it back sporadically throughout the year when I thought the class could use some extra incentive. Telling the classes what they are working towards or giving them options for a reward has also been known to increase their buy-in!

Pros: 

• It’s a whole-class reward, so students are holding each other accountable 
  
• You are only rewarding one class at a time 
  
• There’s nothing “tracking” their day-to-day behaviour at the end of the week, you simply choose the best class
  
• It doesn’t have to be a whole-year commitment. 
  

Cons: 

• Depending on your school, having the classes compete against each other might not go over well. 
  
• There will be students who don’t care if their class wins class of the week. Depending on the reward you choose, you could also inform students that even if the class earns the reward, if they don’t exhibit worthy behaviour, they will not be allowed to participate. ​
  

The truth behind it is that the good classes will be the good classes, and the challenging classes will be the hard classes. Not all classes require a classroom management system, and not all classes will adopt the same one, which can be incredibly challenging for a music teacher. That’s why I rely heavily on the relationships I have with my students and creating a classroom environment that my students enjoy coming to and want to behave in, so that we can do all the fun things I have planned. ​

Good Luck! 
​Jayna