General Music Classroom Budget

Columbia, Missouri has a history of being supportive of the Arts.  Because it is a college town, there are fine arts opportunities available to our schools and classrooms which will not be found in many districts of Missouri.  Each of our classrooms is outfitted with the Gameplan Music Curriculum, Purposeful Pathways Curriculum Resources, and the basic Musicplay Curriculum Resources.  Every music room should have 1-2 of each barred Orff Instrument and a variety of hand percussion instruments.  There is a district classroom ukulele lab for checkout as well as a keyboard lab.  Each school owns more or less physical items depending on a variety of factors including: the school budgets, PTA support, the focus or needs of the music teacher, grants written and the needs of the school.  Every elementary music specialist is issued a yearly budget  to continue furnishing the music room with music, instruments or programs each teacher sees the need for.  

Recently, I asked my CPS colleagues, what are the most important things they spend their budgets on and here are some of the responses I received:

1. First Steps in Music by John Feierabend

2. A nice Concert or Tenor Ukulele for the teacher, a teacher guitar.

3. A Cajon to have a handy place to sit in the front of the room and always have an instrument to keep the beat in the background.

4. Instruments! Instruments! Instruments! replacements for worn out hand percussion & mallets.

5.  I love my Kodaly resources. I use all kinds of charts and magnetic hearts for rhythm and solfege work.

6. Choir Octavos for music library

So . . . how do I spend my budget?  My room is blessed with instruments and I have the bad habit of purchasing every picture book or puppet I want from my personal budget.

Last year, I used my music room budget to purchase 5 soprano Kala Ukuleles for student use, a couple of choir octavos and a school pass for the Virtual Field Trip featuring Somos Amigos.

https://www.powayonstage.org/arts-in-education/artsed-onstage/virtual-field-trips/. 

This year, I will continue to add to my school ukulele set, replace some mallets, replace some maracas, add some egg shakers and add 2-3 more octavos to my school library. I am also going to make a point of doing a better job of keeping a running wish list with items of different price points for the music room. You just never know when someone might want to make a donation.