Magnets

You can make a lot of handy classroom tools with a laminator and magnets :)

The clefs and notes come from a package of musical symbols, and I made the instrument labels with a Cricut cutting machine.  These are easy to see from even the back of the room (though my color choices were maybe not contrasting enough on the instrument labels), and having these movable notes saves on time in class and dry-erase marker usage.  Because I mostly use quarter notes on the board, I cut the dots off the dotted quarter notes and the flags off the single eighth notes (and I cut the note-heads off the single sixteenth notes and glued them on top of the half notes) to create more of the quarter notes.  The alto clef came from a Google image search.

I use these magnets most often when introducing new notes to my students.  For practice, I'll have a student come up and point to different notes and their classmates will play what they see, performing this improvised creation.  Then, if I have a small group of, say, violas followed by a cello or violin group, it's easy to move the notes up or down on the staff as needed as the kids are coming in and unpacking versus erasing the marker and drawing new notes.  One of my schools has a white board with the staff lines built in to the board, which is great for a music classroom.  For my other school, I bought a sheet that goes right over part of the white board and has three staves on it. 

Note: since then, my school bought a double-sided whiteboard on wheels for the band/orchestra room.  One side has staff lines, which is much appreciated, and the other side is plain white.  I also have enough magnets now to post the five notes for violin/viola/cello all at once so I don't have to switch them for each new instrument group.