The Back to School Basics

As someone who is still fairly new to the whole classroom teacher thing, I would never consider myself an expert on the return to school and the establishing of classroom rules and procedures or the meeting of new children and their loving parents. This does not mean that I have not learned a lot from the three previous years I have spent in second grade. I have developed what I feel is a welcoming and well planned routine that I have continued to tweak each year. 

Classroom Prep

While this is something all teachers must do and I would say many quite enjoy (I see all your Facebook and Instagram posts) it can be quite a lot of things to do each year. I like to find people to help such as my husband and grandmother but a great person to recruit is someone you know who is an aspiring teacher. They are usually excited and interested in the process and they might learn something along the way. I also tend to bring my dog with me for emotional support. He is supper cute but kind of the opposite of helpful. 

Since these classroom prep days are already long enough, here are three tips to help things go a little faster.

1. Box things based on where they go in the room at the end of the year.

I use the bins my students have throughout the year for supplies to organize the materials I will use in my classroom. Each area of my room gets its own bin. My desk, each bulletin boards, each shelf. They are all placed together so I can pull them out, take them to their section of the room and set up without looking for each thing I needed.

2. Number instead of label.

Making labels for each student takes a lot of time. There is a lot of writing or printing and laminating, taping or velcroing. I'm not saying it isn't important to make nameplates for each student or cute little die cuts with names for the job board, but not everything needs to be labeled. I give each student in my class a number. That number is theirs and they can use it to get in line order or find their paper but it also works for labels. I label things I will reuse in the classroom each year with numbers. Headphones, mailboxes, clipboards, book bins. I keep cheat sheets with the students number printed next to their name all over the room in case someone else needs it. This saves me a lot of time not having to label things or scrape the names off at the end of the year.
3. Have the students help.

This is a suggestion I use often. Kids love to be part of things and the room is theirs too. Letting them help decorate and create materials makes it feel more like their space. Save a few things they can help with, like bulletin boards or deciding what posters and decorations to put up.

Meet The Teacher

Meet the teacher day is new for our school. My first year we did not meet students until the first day and I did not meet most of the parents until November for our conference day. I was very excited when we were told we were adding this holiday-like meeting day to our calendar. Luckily it is easy enough now-a-days to find the most amazing materials created by other teachers online so I never felt worried about the change. My walk through with each student and parent goes as follows-

1. Take a brochure about the class and myself. I found these through the amazing  on Teachers-Pay-Teachers. 

2. Sign in and sign up to be a volunteer or classroom reader. This idea was stolen from . I loved it so much and I have a volunteer come to read each month (sometimes a parent or grandparents and sometimes a figure from the school like the principal) to the kids to promote literacy and practice manners. They can also trade some sweetness for sweetness by taking a cupcake and donating to our room. The cupcake toppers were also made from.

3. Hand in papers and find the students CLASSDOJO signin sheet. I plan on talking more about Class-Dojo in the future but just know I love it. I then show students and parents how Class-dojo works and how we use it in our classroom. This is important because it is both my behavior management and parent communication. 

4. Lastly I have them select a spot they would like to sit in the room and put whatever supplies they have in their desk. I know I probably just made a few of your heads spin. Now you are probably looking back to make sure you read that right. You let them pick their own spot? Why yes. As I said in the classroom set up section, I think letting them help with the classroom is important and I don't know them yet so I like to see where they feel they will learn best. It also gives them a chance to look around and see what friends they have in the class. These seats are not always the best for them and often are moved later on but I feel it is still important that they have that choice.

After these steps I allow both parents and students to ask any questions they like, explore the room and take a picture in front of our goals board that will soon be used to track each students goals and progress towards them, but for now makes a great photo-booth background. 

First Few Days

The first day of school is always the most exciting day, mostly for parents taking photos of their kids for Facebook, but also for kids and teachers. My students come in ready to be razzled and dazzled by their new teacher and find out just how many buttons they can push while still leaving a good impression. The first few days of school are critical for teaching rules and routines but also for establishing relationships with students. There is plenty of materials out there about how to deal with being effective in your first few days. Each year I prefer to review the book The First Days Of School: How To Be An Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong. The biggest things I use from this book is that spending time at the beginning of the school year, teaching class procedures instead of content will actually maximize instructional time for the rest of the year and the importance of telling students why they are learning something or why they are doing a particular activity.

When it comes to the relationship making part my biggest suggestion is to give each student some real time with you to talk. I spend the first few weeks eating lunch with one or two students every day. They tell me their interests and what they want to learn but really it is just a time where they feel like they are actually listened to. I also like to ask them who they think is the smartest, nicest, fastest, funniest, etc. kids in the class. I think it gives me a lot of information about them and the other students they know. It shows me who lacks confidence, who has plenty to go around, who is considered the smart kid or the nice kid and who is friends with who. I think eating lunch with each kid is a much better way to find out about your students then just having them fill out a pre-made poster. 

First Day of School Outfit