[00:01:00]
All right, so you want to have a great start to the school year, right? So let’s get started with tip number one, and that is to start out slow. Your school year should be thought of as a marathon, not a race. I know that we all have so many standards to cover during the year, and sometimes it’s really hard to take it slowly, but that’s exactly what you need to do.

Try not to rush into too many heavy things at first. The kids have to build their [00:02:00] stamina for being back in the classroom for seven or eight hours. You know, they’ve been at home all summer just relaxing and playing and eating and doing whatever they wanted to do all day long. So getting back into this routine is gonna take them a little bit of time.

The first week of school should be a time to get to know each other, establish your rules, discover the classroom, the playground, and the rest of the school.

Give the kids a break. And I mean that literally—do a 30-minute activity with your class and then take a 15-minute break. Maybe put on a GoNoodle video to get them up and moving, and then do another 30-minute activity and then take another break. Maybe take them out to the playground for 15 minutes. And then you sort of rinse and repeat that all through the day—just short little lessons followed by a little break.

When you begin slowly, you not only give the kids the opportunity to build up their stamina for sitting for long periods of time, but you [00:03:00] also get a chance to get to know your students, and they get to know you.

And it’s okay to start the school year off slowly. Nobody’s gonna fail that big end-of-the-year test just because you let them have a little downtime during the first week of school.

All right, so tip number two is to be prepared.

Make sure that you have your plans written out and your materials all ready to go. Write down everything that you plan to do during the first week of school, and have your papers copied, your supplies all ready.

If you’re planning to read some books to your class—and I hope you are—make sure that you have those picture books pulled from the shelf and ready to go.

Are there papers that you’re planning on doing with your kids? I’m sure there are. So make sure those papers are copied and ready.

What about little art projects or a craft or something? I always like to do at least one or two crafts with my kids that first week of school. You know, it’s sort of fun for them, and it gives you an opportunity to check out their fine [00:04:00] motor skills. You can see who’s able to hold a pair of scissors and cut with them, who can write their name, what their drawing and their coloring looks like.

Plus, it gives you something cute to put on your bulletin board at the start of the year. So if you plan to do a craft, make sure that you have your construction paper cut, your paint ready—whatever it is that you need for that craft—have it all ready to go for each day.

All right. On to tip number three: be organized.

If you want to have a smooth start to your school year, it’s important to plan ahead. Make sure that you have your lesson plans for that first week, and possibly even the second week of school, ready.

I always like to have everything ready for the following week before I left school on Friday to start my weekend.

So make sure you have a place to put all of your materials. In my classroom, I had some baskets that were behind my desk on a shelf, and I had them labeled Monday through Friday. So I put all my materials for the week in those [00:05:00] baskets.

If you don’t have space for that, you could use a plastic stacking drawer organizer. You know, you could put it on a shelf or even on the corner of your desk. Whatever you choose, just make it easy for a sub to find as well.

Because the great thing about having your materials ready ahead of time for the week is that if you have to take an unexpected day off or something, you don’t have anything to worry about. Your lesson plans are gonna be all written and all your materials are ready in case a sub has to take over.

So make sure that your plans are done, your copies for the week are made, and all organized before you leave on Friday night. That way, you know that you’re well prepared for the following week.

You know, if you do this, your classroom management is gonna be better because you aren’t gonna have to be rushing around getting things ready, which is never good. And you never have to worry if you have to call off sick or get called from the classroom.

So start thinking about that now. Where can you put those daily baskets? Do you have a [00:06:00] shelf? Maybe you want to put your stuff in hanging files to save room? Just think about how you can organize your materials so that you’re ready every day.

All right, moving on to tip number four: begin to establish your classroom rules on the first or the second day of school.

Kids are gonna try to test you because they want to know the boundaries. So make sure you teach them those boundaries early on.

You can start to establish your classroom rules on the very first day of school, but you definitely want to do that with your class because when you have the kids help you make the rules, they’ll take them more seriously—because they helped create them, right?

So don’t just buy a rules poster somewhere that’s already made up. Make it with your class.

In my classroom, we’d always read the book David Goes to School by David Shannon. It’s the perfect book to read because, in it, a little boy named David gets into all sorts of mischief at school and basically does everything that he isn’t supposed to do at school. [00:07:00] He’s talking in class, and he is bothering other kids, and all sorts of stuff.

So after you read the book, you can have your kids help you make your classroom rules. In my room, we made a chart called Our Class No-No’s.

The kids would help me come up with some of our rules, like “No talking in class” or “No running in the hall,” and then we’d use interactive writing to make the chart.

If you’ve never heard of it, interactive writing is when you and your students share the pen to do the writing. So I would choose maybe one or two students to come up and they’d write the word “no,” and I would write the rest of the rule.

Later on, I’d usually make the rules written in more positive language. So instead of “No running,” I’d write something like, “We will walk inside the school,” or something like that.

You can come up with maybe five or six rules for your classroom. I like to write each rule in a different color so that later, as the year went on, if one of the kids was doing something wrong, I could refer to the rule by the color—since most of them couldn’t actually read the chart yet. [00:08:00]

So like if a student was talking out of turn, I might say, “Oh, remember the red rule? We will not talk when the teacher is talking,” or whatever it was. It really helped the kids to learn the rules quickly.

So tip number four is to establish your rules right away with your class and then go over them every day for the first couple of weeks of school.

Okay, tip number five is to teach your classroom procedures.

One thing I learned a long time ago is to never assume that the kids know what to expect.

It’s a good idea to think about all the classroom procedures that you have and make a list, and then plan to touch on pretty much all of them within the first week or two of class.

You know, when kids know what’s expected of them, they generally try to meet those expectations.

So think about what your routine and your expectations are gonna be.

Some of the things that you definitely want to teach are: how to line up, how to push in your chair, how to hang your coat in your [00:09:00] cubby, where kids should keep their supplies.

I mean, in kindergarten and first grade, you really have to teach every little thing. Never assume that they’re gonna know how to do these things.

Some other procedures that you’ll need to teach are how and when to sharpen pencils, and your bathroom procedures.

On the first day of school, one of the first things I always did was walk my class down to the bathroom and show them everything.

You literally need to show them how to flush the toilet, how to wash their hands, and remind them to throw the paper towels in the trash can and not on the floor—because they will throw them all over the floor if you don’t remind them.

If you have time, pick a couple of kids to demonstrate because that’s gonna really make them pay attention.

There are so many more routines than that, but you get the picture. Teach the kids what you expect for every single little thing that you do in your classroom.

I made a little freebie for you that you can grab in the show notes, and it has 40 different classroom routines and procedures that you should teach at the beginning of the [00:10:00] year.

You know, contrary to popular belief, kids actually do love routines. They really do.

It makes them feel safe and secure when they know what’s expected of them, and they will try to meet those expectations. But they’re kids, you know? And so things aren’t always gonna be perfect, but they try.

So think about how you want your day to go. What do you want your kids to do when they first enter the room?

In my classroom, we had our Morning Chores. There were four of them, which were:
– Sign in for either buying or packing lunch
– Turn in their daily folder (I had a red basket on a shelf where they put their folder, and then I would check it every day and hand it back to them to put in their mailbox. Then at the end of the day, they’d put all their papers from their mailbox into their folder to go home.)
– Go to the bathroom and wash their hands (I had them do that to eliminate kids leaving the carpet to go to the restroom as soon as we sat down for morning meeting.)
– Sit in their seat [00:11:00] and do their morning activity

That would change every day, really. Sometimes I would put out Play-Doh or math tubs. Other days they might have a coloring sheet. And then eventually, as the year went on, they would usually write in their daily journal.

It was usually some kind of quiet activity, but engaging, because my kids would trickle in over about 20 minutes at the start of the day. So I wanted them to have something to do that would keep them occupied.

I made a photo list that I posted by the classroom door with the pictures of their Morning Chores. So when they first came to school, I could remind them to look at the chores list and do everything on it before they came into the room.

So there you have it—start out slow. Be prepared and organized. Establish your classroom rules and routines.

If you begin the school year by following these tips, I think you’re gonna have a great start to your first week of school, and hopefully, the rest of the school year.

Also, don’t forget to [00:12:00] get yourself some kind of caffeinated beverage, because that first week of school—or maybe even the first month—is really exhausting, and you’re gonna need it.

All righty, I hope you enjoyed this very first episode of The Firstieland Podcast, and if you did, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode.

And I’d love it if you would leave a review. That’ll help other teachers find my podcast and get the word out and get it started.

All right, friends. Until next week, take care and remember to make learning feel like play.

I’ll see you next week back here in Firstieland.