So you are a new teacher and are nervous before approaching this year? It is overwhelming having 24 little ones in your trusted care and you are responsible for preparing them for the next grade. No pressure right?
I have gathered tips from Veteran Teachers. These are tips we wish we had known before we started teaching or before we finished that first year.
Read through the list, don’t be overwhelmed.
Bookmark this page to visit often!
Especially when you need to be reminded that it’s your first year, you won’t be perfect, none of us are, you will mess up, lessons won’t work, admin may give you the advice you didn’t want to hear and you will feel depleted.
But keep that end goal in mind, this is what you went to school to do, your desire is to impact these kids, to inspire them, love on them, and make them feel safe and loved. They will pass to the next grade, they will learn and the success you see in their work in May will make it all worth it!
The top Two Things to remember this year are to Create a safe environment and to make learning fun.
Most Important!
Create a safe environment
How? Keep calm in all circumstances.
Your students should never wonder, “Is my teacher going to be in a bad mood today or a good mood?” They should show up knowing that you are calm and collected.
Connect with them! Get to know your students, let them get to know you. Ask them about home, who do they live with, where do they live, what makes them happy, what activities do they do?
Share pictures and stories about your weekend and let them be apart of you.
Hey! Your family for the next 10 months. Invest emotionally. When a child loves you and adores you, it is harder for them to misbehave. Here is a a great unit on Connecting with your students (CLICK HERE) with tons of lessons to get to know your class, help them get to know each other and build up that class family.
Second Most Important!
Make learning fun
Do art projects on Fridays! CLICK HERE FOR FREE DIRECTED DRAW UNITS
Do Science experiments, and games, do group work even when it sucks, do projects and transform your room into an operating room and do Contraction Surgery.
When school is safe and fun, kids want to come to school, and then while they are there, that’s when learning happens.
Other Tips For New Teachers
- Write positive notes to families about their child. Make a goal to send out a few notes each semester. Then when the bad one comes you have already built a rapport.
- Communicate with families. Don’t over communicate (like a daily email), but give them an overview once a week of what their child is doing and how they can help
- If a lesson isn’t working, just stop, switch to something fun
- Routines and Procedures need to be practiced over and over and over and over, even when it gets boring and you just want to get to curriculum. CLICK HERE FOR A FREE CHECKLIST ON PROCEDURES
- Spend time teaching Character Education before curriculum. Your school year will go much smoother. CLICK HERE FOR IDEAS
- Take your lunch break
- Ask for opportunities to watch veteran teachers teach. You will learn a lot.
- Do not take work home. Set boundaries for yourself, set and alarm for the time you MUST leave. Use your prep time wisely and plan it out.
- Don’t over plan.
- Don’t plan on parents thanking you for going above and beyond. They either don’t notice or don’t have time to stop and thank you.
- Be kind to the custodian. Make conversation, leave notes of encouragement and he/she will take good care of you.
- Write directions on the board even if they can’t read it
- Set alarms for taking attendance, intervention and specials. You will forget if you don’t.
- Your work is never done. You don’t need to finish it today.
- Take mental health days.
- Don’t grade everything (let parents know this)
- Have emergency sub plans in your classroom and ready to go. CLICK HERE for TEMPLATES and SUB ACTIVITIES
- Be consistent with your classroom management CLICK HERE FOR IDEAS
- Try not to spend personal money on your classroom.
- Your students don’t need a back to school gift, Christmas Gift, Easter Gifts, Mother’s Day gifts and End of the year gift.
Enjoy this year! You will never forget this year and that first group of students and if you do things right they will never forget the love you gave them that year.
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