This is a guest post by one of our teacher-authors, Katherine Miller.
There are so many digital resources available for educators out there, but not all of them have direct connections to the music classroom. Lucky for us, this does not include Canva!
Canva is an online design and publishing tool that allows educators to create their own digital media for the classroom for free (by applying for a free education account).
The website includes thousands of templates to help start a multitude of different design projects from worksheets to websites and almost everything in between! Many of the templates available are even tailored specifically to music educators.
Here are 10 of my favorite Canva Templates perfect for the music classroom.
#1: Classroom Bunting
You can use this template to create decorations for your classroom! You could make a bunting to use outside of your classroom, to label different areas of your classroom, or display your name.
#2: Class Daily Visual Timetable
Stay on theme by creating a daily visual schedule to match your other classroom decor, like the bunting linked above. There are a variety of daily schedule templates that you can customize to your own needs, print, laminate, and hang in your classroom.
For instance, I created my schedule to match my classroom theme from the Pastel Polka Dot template seen below.
#3: Music Google Classroom Header
You can also decorate your virtual classroom by using a template to create a personalized header for your Google Classroom. These templates are perfectly sized to design and upload directly to your Google Classroom.
#4: Music Lesson Presentation
You can use a Canva presentation template to present all of the daily activities in your classroom. In this template, there are 12 different slide options that can be reordered, and added to/deleted in order to match your needs.
If pink and purple are not your style, you can even easily change the color scheme by exploring other palettes within the Brand Kit or creating your own!
#5: Music Content Presentations
Canva even includes presentation templates you can use to teach music content, like notes on the treble clef staff. You can use these ready-made activities as part of a larger lesson or they would also be great to use as easy lessons to leave for a guest teacher. To see some more examples, you can search “Music Quiz Presentation” from your Canva homepage.
#6: Music Worksheets
Need a way for students to practice a skill? The worksheet template options are nearly endless in Canva. From content specific worksheets to graphic organizers that can be used for any purpose, there are so many options that you can download and print or use as a starting point to create your own tailored specifically to the students in your class.
Some of my favorite ready-made worksheet templates for elementary music are:
Here is an example of how I took a ready-made Music Beat Worksheet template and quickly personalized it for my 3rd-grade students working on sixteenth notes with the song Tideo.
You can download my free template for your own students from my `TeachersPayTeachers store here!
#7: Music Bingo
You can use this bingo template to create your own version of music bingo! Whether your students are working on note values, music vocabulary or instruments of the orchestra, you can choose what to include in each square.
Do you need music notation symbol images? Grab some free ones from Midnight Music here!
#8: Instrument Flashcards
This flashcard template includes a variety of instruments and is a fun classroom activity that could be used in a variety of ways. Students could use the flashcards as a way to sort instruments into families. They could also be used as a matching game to include in centers by printing two sets of flashcards. Or, you could use them to decide who gets which instrument when you use them to play in class.
#9: Game Templates
Do your students love to play games? You can easily put together a fun icebreaker or game activity one of the many game templates available. Some popular games included are “Would You Rather”, “Two Truths and a Lie”, “Memory”, “Charades” and more.
These templates are also great to create fun activities for adult learners too! I used one of the Canva “Would You Rather?” templates to create an icebreaker activity for staff to participate in at the beginning of a professional development session. You can see the game I built by visiting this link.
#10: Music Award Certificates
Celebrate all of the awesome things happening in your classroom by using Canva to create award certificates.
Did you also know you can also automate the sending of your classroom certificates or make a bunch of them at once automatically? Click here to learn how from the Midnight Music Blog!
Final Thoughts
What are your favorite templates to use in Canva for your music classroom? Drop a link to share below!
More Blogs About Canva from Midnight Music
- 3 Quick Tips to Clean Up Your Canva Drive
- 9 Exciting Canva Updates for Teachers
- How to Design Your Classroom Theme in Canva
- 5 MORE Cool Canva Tricks for Designing Teacher Resources
- How to Use Canva to Merge Technology Standards and Content Standards
- Our Top 10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Canva for Teachers
- How to Use Canva to Create Your Teachers Pay Teachers Products and Store
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About Katherine Miller
Katherine (Katie) Miller holds a Bachelor of Music in Education degree from Otterbein University (Westerville, OH) and a Masters of Educational Leadership from Antioch McGregor Midwest (Yellow Springs, OH). She has 15 years of professional musical experience as a music educator and performer.
She resides in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area where she teaches K-5 General Music and serves as a district model tech classroom. She was recognized in 2018 as a WPT Education Innovator by the Wisconsin Public Television Education team. Twitter: K8TMiller
Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?
Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.
I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.
I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.
If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.
