Tips for the new teacher for the first day of school.
Every time I hit August 20th or so, I immediately start thinking of going back to school. For me, going back to school preparations and lesson planning is like starting the first day of school all over again.
Just this morning I woke up thinking I needed to start thinking again about the first day of school. It's a lot of hard work. New teachers especially expend incredible amounts of emotional energy. It is a real treat to have a sabbatical after so many years of hard work.
The real trick in lesson planning for the first day of school is not to overplan and to keep the tone serious for learning. This means sticking to a routine, reinforcing rules and procedures and even spending the first five or ten minutes reintroducing them in class. Stick to the basics, avoid too much creativity. What students need right now is a consistent routine that will easily settle them into the school year.
I know this is easier said than done. You, as the new teacher, will spend more tme 'feeling' your way in the classroom during the first few weeks and especially during the first few days reading the students' responses, gathering information about their cooperation, and intelligence as a class. You will soon grow to know what makes them 'tick' as a class, who the troublemakers are and what you need to do to keep them when the lesson doesn't go right.
You will be imitating and experimenting with different classroom management styles and picking the one who feel most comfortable with. You will constantly have classroom management issues to deal with and this is where New Teacher Support can help you with tools and ideas for handling that particular classroom management problem.
It is probably an excellent idea to write out classroom seating charts and learn the names of your students. This quickly helps establish a connection with the students and helps personalize your teaching. It will ony help you get a grip on classroom management problems before they become too unsettling.
This is where you also come in with your lessons. You should have a variety of worksheets and fillers but keep it to a few for those ten or fifteen minutes when you feel the students have absorbed enough and are passive enough to do some short writing assignment quietly.
Take into consideration also the time of day. Last periods call for more passive rather than active activities.
Good luck to all the new teachers starting the first day of school. Please feel free to email me with any concerns or questions you may have.
