Let’s prepare for the new school year with some back to school tips! Whether you teach a primary or junior grade, the first few weeks of school are vital in creating a presence and the tempo of your classroom.
Back to School: Ready Or Not…It’s Here!
How have you spent your summer break? Hopefully, it’s been one that included some downtime and rest. Some fun and relaxation. Why? Simply because it was needed. The summer break has been super necessary after the year we’ve had in teaching. I sincerely hope you had some days to rest and rejuvenate in ways that are special for you.
Despite it being summer though, the reality is that it’s time to prepare for back to school. Where I live, we go back to school in early September. Now that it is August, planning for the new school year is definitely on my mind.
Back to School: The Early Years of Teaching
As a new teacher, I focused on back to school preparations in a different way. I spent time planning for teaching, assessing, and evaluation, but spent a whole lot of time physically preparing my classroom. I remember dedicating so much time making sure my bulletin boards, decor, and other visuals were “just right”.
Today I still see this is an important part of getting ready to go back to school. In fact, it’s exciting and fun to include this in the process! After experiencing many first days of school however, I have realized a few key areas that truly benefit my class and my teaching overall each year.
Back to School Tips
In this post, I’m going to share six back to school tips that I look forward to following again as I prepare for my new class. Perhaps they may be helpful for you, too!
Back to School Tip #1: Plan Your Year
This is key to having a successful school year! Back to school preparations for me starts with drafting an outline of my school year. Even though we already know that plans may change as we get to know our students’ needs and interests, it’s still important to have a map of where we are going in our learning.
The last year has especially demanded change in our teaching due to the pandemic. For that reason, I will be planning my year with the most useful aspects of my in-person and distance learning experiences.
This is What I do When Planning My Year
1. Plan my Year-at-a-Glance: I write down the topics in each subject that I need to cover. I then break down the topics by term and/or month. To organize my year, I use a simple digital teacher planner that I created. I like using it because I can easily make changes as needed. For more details, you can read about it here.
2. Focus on curriculum expectations or standards: I look through the curriculum documents. The expectations helps me plan my units in more detail.
3. Outline Unit Plans for Each Subject for the Year: This is where I use my curriculum expectations to focus on what I will cover in each subject. This process also helps me think about lessons, key strategies, assessments, and activities that will drive my teaching.
4. Reporting Statements: Yes, I know it’s only back to school time, yet part of preparing me for a successful year includes this task. Planning with the end in mind helps me stay organized. It also guides my assessments and lowers stress levels (slightly) when it’s time to write report cards.
5. Brainstorm Activities for the First Weeks of School: Time to think about getting to know my new students! It’s best to think about ways to help each new class start their year in a great way! I use the first few weeks of school to strictly get to know my students and learn about what they know and need to know.
Before going onto the next tip, I just have to mention that my planning doesn’t stop at the above! Once I assess the needs of my students, I start breaking down my plans for the term even further: I start using a digital Week-at-a-Glance planner. This helps me organize my subjects by week. I change it as needed as I work with my class and learn more about their needs and interests.
Back to School Tip #2: Prepare Your Classroom
As mentioned earlier, this was perhaps my favourite part of back to school preparations in my early days of teaching! It’s so much fun to set up the physical classroom. Setting up your classroom as an inviting space is a great way to make a new class feel welcomed and engaged. Putting lots of thought into the physical set-up of the classroom can also help maximize learning experiences and opportunities, too.
Quick lesson from my experience: My classroom used to be set-up (e.g., bulletin boards, visuals around the classroom) to my liking each year. I enjoyed seeing how it came together…until one year, I couldn’t do the same. Due to a late arrival from a summer trip, I had only one day to set-up the classroom, compared to a full week or more I had in the past. That year, my students came into a more plain classroom (bare bulletin boards!), but you know what? It was the best classroom set-up ever! My students and I enjoyed decorating our space together. It was a complete mindset shift and one that I continue to follow each year since that time. The blank canvas approach has been a winning approach for me and one that I honestly didn’t think would work at the onset!
My students enjoyed decorating and setting up our space together. It was a complete mindset shift and one that I continue to do each year since that time.
Now that distance learning is something we are familiar with, I plan on setting up my Virtual Classroom spaces as well (e.g., Google Classroom, Seesaw, class website, Zoom meetings, etc.) This is a fairly new variable in our teaching and so I think it’s important for me to reflect on what worked well (and what didn’t) last year while teaching online.
Back to School Tip #3: Welcome Your Students
Okay, it’s the first day of school and it’s time to welcome your new students! I can feel the excitement and nerves in the children, families, and teachers already! Here are a few quick ways that I like to welcome students back to school during that first week:
- “I’m happy you’re here!” Letting my students know that I’m thrilled to have them in my class helps ease some nerves for students and families. The truth is, I’m thrilled to get to work with them! I also like to let them know that I feel nervous, too.
- Name Games and Activities: Since teachers and students alike are learning many new names, games and activities are one of my favourite ways to start off the new school year. Celebrating students’ names helps them feel valued and helps to build a classroom community. Invite students to say their names aloud several times (during the first few weeks) so that teachers and peers can learn to respectfully say each others’ names. One of the sweetest things a person can hear is their name as it was intended to sound. Young students can also work on writing their own name in different ways. I even have a challenge after the first two weeks of school! My students line up, while one of their peers (who wishes to participate) tries to name all (or as many) of their new classmates. If they get to a person and can’t recall the name, they simply whisper, “What’s your name again?” and the person replies, then the game continues.
Great Back to School Read Aloud: A Letter From Your teacher: On the First Day of School (By Shannon Olsen) *non-affiliate / unsponsored link*
Back to School Tip #4: Create a Classroom Community
Teachers and students spend a lot of time together each school day. For this reason, it’s critical that I create a classroom community where students feel safe, happy, and open to learning and growing.
While students are learning each other’s names during the early days and weeks of school, it’s also fun to learn more about each other! Doing class surveys and small-group and paired activities give room for students to learn more about the peers they will be working with each day.
Student voice is very important in all that we do. When students take responsibility for caring for their peers and classroom, it makes them feel important and helpful to others (e.g., Line Leader, Pencil Manager, etc.)
Building community can also happen when students have opportunities to share pieces about their lives with the class. Intentionally giving students time to talk with their peers often during the day helps the learning process and is a necessary building block for strengthening reading and writing skills!
Intentionally giving students time to talk with their peers often during the day helps the learning process and is a necessary building block for strengthening reading and writing skills!
Back to School Tip #5: Act Out Routines
Teaching routines may seem mundane at times, but they are a necessary back to school feature. Once my students know what to do, when to do it, and why it’s being done, then my classroom has a better chance of running more smoothly.
I give my students opportunities to act out the routines we are learning. Children learn so much through play and so when they are all given the chance to practice the behaviours we hope to see, they understand the expectations even better.
Some of the routines that I make sure we act out are:
- Lining up outside of and entering the school, classroom, etc.
- How to organize your desk
- What to do after entering the classroom in the morning, after lunch, etc.
- How to ask questions or share answers during large group discussions
Great Back to School Read Aloud: Butterflies on the First Day of School (by Annie Silvestro) *non-affiliate / unsponsored link*
Back to School Tip #6: Connect with Families
It is important for me as a teacher to also create that classroom community feeling with each student’s family. Greeting parents before or after school is just a nice start. At the end of the first week of school, I send a general “sunshine note” to each student’s family. Parents enjoy receiving positive messages about their children’s progress in class. I have had great experiences reaching out to parents throughout the year in order to share some good news about their child in class.
By the end of that first week, it is also my goal to have the email addresses and/or phone numbers from parents so that I can update them whenever necessary.
Last year was the first time I set up a class website because it was easy for parents to see quick updates from our class on a whole. It is something I will incorporate again this year.
Time To Start!
Back to School time is always a super busy one. Using these six tips can help you to be ready for this year’s start. Here’s a quick recap of the six tips to help you prepare for back to school:
- Plan Your Year
- Prepare Your Classroom
- Welcome Your Students
- Create a Classroom Community
- Act Out Routines
- Connect with Families
I’m looking forward to planning out my year and meeting my new class. I wish you all the best in your upcoming school year. May it be a fulfilling one for you, your students, and their families!
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