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I've been in education for 18 years and the one phrase that always comes up again and again is "Fake It Until You Make It"...

Saturday, August 18, 2018

A New Year... A Fresh Start

The back to school nightmares started a few weeks ago for most of us. 


We went from being able to do whatever we wanted with a focus on our family and friends to setting up our classrooms and spaces and envisioning all of the new faces we will see for the next nine months. It went so fast! Some of us are ready to go back and have some routine, while others are digging in their heals holding on to the last few days of summer. 


Wherever you are, the one thing that is the same for all of us is: We get a fresh start!

You are not the only one who get's a fresh start this year. Your students are coming to you with lots of hopes and dreams also. 



There might be a student who was super quiet last year, and wants to open up more and make more friends. You may have the little girl who always talked, and has set a goal to be a better listener this year. Maybe you had a student who misbehaved ALL the time to show off for another classmate, and this is the year they want to turn that around. 

You have your own goals for this year too. 


You want to make sure you are connecting with students more and put a schedule in place to make sure you have one on one time with students. Maybe you realized that your writer's workshop wasn't exactly how you pictured it last year, so you are tweaking it to make it more successful with this classroom. It's possible that you had a very stressful year with many kids who came trauma to school, and you are ready and prepared for that this year with new tools and strategies to try. 


Here are a few tips from your coach for a successful school year:

  • Form relationships with your students by having morning meeting and closing circles. 
  • Spend the first 6 weeks getting to know as much as you can about your class with conversations and interest inventories. Instead of working while they are having playtime or quiet time, try to sit with a few students and just talk! 2 minutes is enough to find out what they are into. Find out what they like to read, do at home, and what makes them nervous. Then, plan your lessons around those interests!
  • Reach out to parents with surveys and involve them in your classroom. Communicate regularly with them through emails, Remind, or SeeSaw. When they come in and see how well you herd "kittens," they have a new appreciation for you and what you do every day. The other benefit is your students will have more adult attention and help. 
  • Expectations, Expectations, Expectations!! Think of everything you have to teach and practice in the classroom and do interactive modeling of those steps over and over again until they have it down pat!
  • Don't be afraid to stop and re-do said expectations. If the expectation is we transition from carpet to seats quietly in less than a minute and we have talking. STOP! Go back and practice it again. I promise it is annoying to you and those students that are following directions, but the rest of your year will be 100% better!
  • Plan ahead. The more and better planned you are, the less opportunities for students to be off task and get chatty. 
  • Look into energizers and brain breaks and have a list of them with directions ready. If your kids are getting chatty or moving around a lot, they need a break! They haven't had to sit and listen all summer. Just like they build up stamina for reading, writing, and math fluency, they will also need to build up stamina for listening and sitting for longer lengths of time. 




I cannot think of another career that gives you a chance to start over every year. In fact, each day is a fresh start. If today doesn't go the way you planned, reflect on what happened, and make changes for a new start the following day! Although the beginning of the year is stressful for both you and your students, it's important to think of it as a fresh start. You have or will have a new group, new smiling faces, new ideas, and because of that new strategies will have to be used. What you did last year that worked, may not work with this group and that's ok! Flexibility is the key to a successful new school year. 

I hope you have the best year ever!



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