Teaching Elementary Orchestra : careers in music

Showing posts with label careers in music. Show all posts

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Bulletin Board Ideas by Month

I keep a document where I keep track which years/months I post my different hallway bulletin boards, and I thought it might be helpful to see them sorted by month. My beginning-of-the-year bulletin board tends to stay up until winter break if it's a year when I don't put up the bow hold bulletin board; then second semester I'll change it each month or so. Some I use every year (Birthday/Music for Life/Music In Our Schools Month/End-of-Year Recruiting), some I alternate every-other year (the two January bulletin boards), some I try to rotate between several before repeating one (beginning-of-the-year bulletin boards), and some I've maybe only used once or twice.

What other bulletin board ideas might I add to the mix?

SEPTEMBER/BEGINNING OF THE YEAR/SEMESTER 1

OCTOBER

Beautiful Bow Hold Bulletin Board

NOVEMBER

Thankful for Composers Bulletin Board

DECEMBER/WINTER CONCERT

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

Celebrate Music with these Great Americans! Bulletin Board

MARCH

APRIL

Springtime Music Bulletin Board

MAY/JUNE/END OF YEAR

ANY TIME (or could be timed to special events--Career Day?)

YEAR-ROUND (in classroom)

Monday, August 15, 2022

Music for Life Bulletin Board

In an effort to help with retention in orchestra between elementary and middle school, I created this "Music for Life" bulletin board. I was hearing from students saying that they wanted to become engineers or something else that wasn't directly music-related, so they weren't sure there was room for music classes in their middle school schedules. I want students to be able to visualize themselves as musicians--no matter what they may end up studying in college or choosing as a career--and to understand that music classes are for everyone--not just those who are planning to become professional musicians. This bulletin board showcases highly accomplished individuals who didn't necessarily go into music as a career but still had musical backgrounds (or sometimes musicians who also studied other disciplines).

The text on the bulletin board says:

Music for life! You don’t have to become a professional musician to enjoy playing music—music is part of a well-rounded education and is for everyone! Music is something you can take with you for the rest of your life :)

Check out these individuals who are well-known in their own fields and are also musicians—or are famous musicians who studied other disciplines too!

Here are the 15 individuals included (feel free to add your own):

Neil Armstrong: Astronaut/Pianist, Baritone Horn Player
Louis Braille: Educator, Inventor of braille/Cellist and Organist
Charles Dickens: Author/Accordion Player
Albert Einstein: Physicist/Pianist and Violinist
Mahatma Gandhi: Lawyer/Concertina Player
Art Garfunkel: Singer, Poet, and Actor/Studied architecture; degrees in Art History and Mathematics Education
Sarah Gillis: Astronaut/Violinist
Donald Glaser: Physicist/Violinist, Violist, and Pianist
Madeleine L'Engle: Author/Pianist, Choir Director
Steve Martin: Comedian, Actor, Writer, Producer, Musician/Banjo Player
Henri Matisse: Artist/Violinist
Brian May: Musician, Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist of Queen/Doctorate in Physics and Mathematics
Condoleezza Rice: Political Scientist, Diplomat/Pianist
Oscar Robertson: Basketball Player/Flutist
Fred Rogers: Television Host, Author, Producer, Minister/Pianist
Molly Yeh: Cookbook Author, Blogger/Percussionist

Who else should I add to the list? One idea for an extension would be to keep in touch with a school's graduating seniors from music classes and showcase their involvement in music and their field of study/career.

Music for Life bulletin board:

Google doc

You could print these out on white paper, single-sided, as-is, or I put the text about each person by itself at the bottom of the document in case you'd like to cut out the picture and text and paste onto a colored background as I did.

I also added information about and pictures of community bands and orchestras in the area to show what kind of musical opportunities exist for community members.

Enjoy!

Monday, April 4, 2016

Careers in Music Bulletin Board

With career day coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought I had better put together a bulletin board to highlight some possible careers in music. When I was in elementary school, the only careers in music that I was aware of were "orchestra teacher" and "member of a symphony orchestra," so I'm hoping this will help other students realize that there are many different ways they could make a career out of music.

I added a few descriptive words or phrases and an image for each of the careers. Then, for the bulletin board, I took six long pieces of black yarn, tied them in one big knot in the middle, and stapled that to the center of the bulletin board first. After stapling one corner of each of the different pages to get an idea where each one would end up, I knew where to staple the other end of each piece of yarn (and trim it down), and then I could finish securing the rest of the corners.