Entire First Day of School Chapter for Newsletter Subscribers

Thanks for subscribing to the See Me After Class newsletter. As promised, here is the entire chapter on preparing for the first day of school, including shopping lists, lesson-plan must-haves, frequently asked questions, and a two week countdown to-do list. Plus, you’ll see stories from veteran teachers who made it through rough first days to successful careers beyond.

FIRST DAZE

You know the first day of school is the most important, right? Of course you know the first day of school is the most important. You received multiple copies of a 337-page book on the importance of the first day of school. You spent months planning for the first day of school, and . . . you messed up the first day of school.

Now what?

This chapter addresses the three questions most new teachers have about the first day of school: “Where do I start?” “What should I expect?” and, most important, “What if my first day doesn’t go as planned?” (because it never does).

 

Where You Start

First-Day Shopping List

The rookie-teacher shopping instinct is to buy every object you might use for any possible lesson you might think of one day. When I cleaned out my fourth-grade classroom, I found a strange collection of toys, magnetic letters, and dollar-store puzzle books, still unopened in a cabinet after two years. I also spent my own money on supplies the school gave us for free later in the week. Yet my first day I didn’t have a stapler or rubber bands—two things I needed badly. The following is a list of supplies you may want in stock before school starts, but check what your school provides before buying anything on your own.

Before-School Shopping ListsSupplies to Buy at a Dollar or Discount StoreHit the cheap stores first. You will blow a high enough percentage of your puny salary on classroom supplies this year—you don’t need the best-quality staples.

Manila folders (one for each student and at least 100 extra).
Colored computer paper (buy white paper only if your school does not provide it or you have to slay an evil dragon to get 20 sheets of paper).
Colored pens for grading.
Staplers.
Staples.
Paper clips.
Rubber bands.
Sticky notes.
Scissors.
Sharpies or other permanent markers.
Scotch tape.
Clear packing tape.
A three-hole punch.
A digital kitchen timer (not one that you turn and that makes a ticking sound).
Dry-erase markers or chalk for the board.
Wet-erase or overhead markers if you use a projector.
Chalkboard or marker board erasers.
A spray bottle.
Paper towels.
Tissues.
Hand sanitizer.
Spray cleaner or disinfectant wipes (lots and lots of these).

 

Supplies to Get at an Office Supply Store

Office supply stores are a little more expensive, but they offer a big, professional-looking selection. Don’t forget to ask for your teacher discount.

Anything on the preceding list you couldn’t find at other stores.
File boxes (if you have no file drawers or plan to use hanging folders for student work).
Hanging folders (if you buy the file boxes).
Stackable trays to organize incoming papers (at least six if you plan to use the system described in the Piles and Files chapter of this book).
A box of pre-sharpened lotto pencils (to lend to students as needed).
A giant, paper desk calendar that matches the months of the academic year.

 

Supplies to Get at the Teacher Supply Store

Teacher supply stores are the most expensive, but they sell things you can’t find at other stores, like pictures of animals making inspirational statements. Keep in mind that the teacher supply store the week before school starts is like Toys “R” Us on Christmas Eve. It can get ugly.

Something to cover your walls: Most schools supply paper for your bulletin boards. Some provide the border that goes around them, but if you want the fancy stuff with pictures on it, you probably have to buy it yourself. You may also want posters or decorations to make your room feel like a real classroom.
Sticky stuff to put up posters: Sticking decorations to your classroom walls for the whole year usually requires more than tape. There are many options, but I recommend double-sided foam tape.
E-Z Grader: This tool helps you quickly calculate percentages on assignments. It costs about ten dollars, and you’ll know why it’s worth it when you grade your first 17-question quiz.
Stickers: This is one area where the teacher supply store usually has the best value. You can get packages of 800 stickers for five dollars or so.
A whole bunch of other stuff you didn’t know you needed: You’ll see what I mean.

 

(Note: All filing systems mentioned in this chapter are described in detail in the Piles and Files chapter of the book. I’ll also be including the descriptions as a future newsletter subscriber giveaway. Click here to subscribe now.)

 

What to Include in Your First-Day Lesson Plan

Please don’t take your first-day cues from any movie where the teacher stands on a desk. The first day of class should be the most structured day of the year, not the most exciting. It’s all about setting the tone so that you can teach with minimum drama the rest of the year. Your first-day lesson plan is really more of a checklist, and it should include the following elements, most of which will take less time than you expect:

Meeting students at the door and quietly directing them to an assigned seat.
Taking attendance and processing no-show students while the class works quietly.
Arranging paperwork for the office while the class works quietly.
Learning as many of your students’ names as possible while the class works quietly.
Collecting parent contact information before students realize they don’t want you to have their parents’ contact information (while the class works quietly).
Explaining expectations to older students and practicing procedures with younger students.
Assigning homework you plan to collect, even if you are only asking students to get papers signed.

 

Papers You May Want to Give Out the First Day

Student Information Sheet: Schools require parents to fill out emergency information cards, but you will still want to make a form of your own. Older kids can fill this out in class. Younger students should take it home. This paper should include any information you might want later in the year, like home languages or after-school activities. You should also collect as many forms of parent contact info as possible. You can put these in a binder or tape them to the front of manila folders to create the record files described in Chapter 5.

Student Interest Survey: The student interest survey serves two purposes. First, it helps you get to know your students as people. Second, it keeps students busy and quiet while you juggle the demands of the first day. Ask questions that require long answers, but don’t expect the survey to take up too much time. A two-page survey can take as little 10 minutes.

Parent Letter or Syllabus: A letter to parents or a syllabus can explain your expectations, rules, supply list, grading scale, and what you plan to cover in the class. Don’t go into more detail than you can be sure of.

Supply List: If your list of supplies is too long to include in your parent letter or syllabus, send it separately. Talk to coworkers for an idea of what families are used to sending. For younger grades, include classroom supplies like tissues and hand sanitizer—a class of 30 runny noses and 60 dirty hands goes through these things quickly.

Procedures: Make a list of procedures you expect students to follow. Write at a level they can understand.

Long Writing Assignment or Activity Packet (Also known as the “flotation device” activity): If your students are old enough to write on their own, have a long writing assignment prepared for the first day. A well-planned prompt can help you get to know your students, their writing, and their motivation levels. More important, it will take up at least half an hour of class time. If you have other things planned and don’t get to it, that’s fine. However, if you are stuck with an empty half hour after you finish your first-day plans, trust me, you will wish you had a writing assignment. If students are too young to write, make an activity packet based on the letters of the alphabet to keep them coloring for a while.

 

First-Day Tips from Experienced Teachers

“Always start tougher than you really want to be. Try to give consequences early and make an example of the first student who tests a rule. You can always ease up later, but if you hesitate to give consequences for your rules, kids will sense that.”

“Try to learn names as soon as possible. You can give students an index card and ask them to write their names, seat numbers, one identifying detail, and one thing they would like you to know about them. You can use these to call on students for the rest of the day, and to memorize their names as they work.”

“If you don’t think your class list will be exact, you may want to label desks with numbers instead of names. I tape playing cards to each desk—ace through nine of each suit—which divides the class into four teams. When the kids come in the first day, I hand them a card and say, ‘Good morning. Your seat is the one that matches this card. The rest of the directions are on the board.’ I make seating charts once I know kids better, but this system keeps kids from sitting with their friends or collecting in the back of the room on the first day.”

“Relax, it’s the second, third, and fiftieth days you have to worry about.”

 

Preparing Your Room and Yourself for Students

You may have already had your first totally-unprepared-teacher dream. I still have this dream near the end of every vacation, and most teachers I’ve discussed it with know exactly what I’m talking about. It changes, of course, but it always goes something like this:

(Scary music begins.) You have somehow slept through a week’s worth of alarm clocks and it is now your first day of school. You get lost or stuck in traffic, so you show up late, and have to walk past your principal in your pajamas/underwear/clothes-you-went-out-in-last-night. Your classroom/subject/class list has been changed without warning, so you walk in completely unprepared to teach a huge rowdy class that includes every bad child you have ever seen—even bullies from your own school days. Then your principal walks in to observe you. . . .

You wake up sweating and realize it was just a dream, but then a thought hits you: school starts in two weeks, and you’re not prepared. (Scary music returns.) Your to-do list swirls into a mental tornado. How will you find time to finish all this stuff?

 

Ten-Day Countdown to the First Day of School

Every district has a different timeline, but the following example will help you plan your own schedule to make the most of the time you have left.

Ten . . . Plan your discipline strategy in as much detail as possible, including rules, incentives, and consequences. Type your rules poster and expected classrooms procedures. If you feel you don’t know exactly what to say, force yourself to type anyway. Revise later. Start avoiding people who say you chose the wrong career or want to explain why they didn’t become teachers themselves. 

Nine . . . Write lesson plans for your first week. Once again, they don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be done.

Eight . . . Start preparing other classroom forms you think you will need: checklists, signature sheets, and so on. Print your rules poster, along with quotes or pictures you want on your walls.

Seven . . . See your classroom before the weekend if possible, and find out what supplies your school provides. Check whether you have a working computer and printer in your room and plan accordingly. Be sure you have the teachers’ guides for the textbooks you will be using, and ask for the curriculum you will need to follow, if any. Meet your principal’s administrative assistant, who you will probably deal more often than the principal. Check with him or her to be sure you are on a 12-month pay schedule, unless you have another way to support yourself over the summer. Meet the other staff who will affect your quality of life: custodians, zone mechanics, and security guards. Start arranging your furniture and think about how to organize and decorate. Then head to the stores with your first-day shopping lists.

“I finally made it to room 19, where I flipped the ‘call office’ button instead of the light switch three times. I found the lights, apologized to the irritated voice coming over the speaker, and looked around the room. It seemed both huge and tiny at the same time, like the length of the school day: huge when I thought about how I would be responsible for filling it, tiny when I thought about how much I would have to fit into it effectively.”

Six . . . Finish shopping. Laminate your posters. Make sure the room is arranged the way you want it, and request any furniture you still need. Then start planning. Add specific textbook pages to your lesson plans. Gather and set up materials for your first week’s lessons. Use a marker to fill in school holidays and testing dates on a calendar – preferably a giant, paper desk calendar that matches the months of the school year. Then, in pencil, try to map out a very basic unit plan for your first month.

(Weekend): Try on your first-day outfit. You probably already know you should dress like the professional that you are, but if you are just starting to buy teacher clothes, there are a few other things you should remember. First, find comfortable work shoes!!! Really. You might not sit down for seven and a half hours. If your feet have blisters on them after 20 minutes, it will feel much longer. Second, make sure your clothes cover what you want them to at all times. Lift your arms up and check your reflection. Do you see stomach or back? Lean forward in the mirror. Is this what you want showing when you bend over to help? If you teach, say, kindergarten, imagine sitting on a chair while the children sit on the floor listening to you read. Change outfits as needed.

Five . . . If you hoped to get lots of productive work done today, the joke’s on you. School districts often schedule new teacher orientation in the week or two before school starts. This means instead of working in your classroom, you will spend two days in a downtown auditorium listening The Wind Beneath My Wings on repeat and learning about the various ways you can get fired. A continental breakfast will be provided.

Four . . . Continue orientation. If you can’t get to school afterward, prepare as much as possible at home. This is a good day to create the behind-your-desk filing system described in the Piles and Files chapter. Once school starts, setting up files won’t feel like much of a priority.

Three . . . Prepare to be blindsided with at least one meeting or training session, but you should still have several hours to work in your room. The good news is your school is now full of veteran teachers whose ideas you can beg, borrow, and steal. You should meet your mentor teacher and the rest of your department today. Ask coworkers about their supply lists, forms, and first-day plans. Make copies of these or revise your own work as needed. Also ask about department-wide discipline systems and procedures.

“I had some plans in mind for class discipline, but I wasn’t quite sure how to get started. I went next door and found other teachers on my grade level preparing discipline folders and cutting out tickets for a department-wide system they had used for years. All I had to do was join the group and prepare my own folders.”

Two . . . Allow time for a few meetings. Finish any forms you haven’t finished yet. Make as many of your first-day copies as you can; then start decorating. You may notice your classroom seems empty compared to those of other teachers. Don’t feel bad—they’ve been collecting decorations for years. 

One . . . Finish your copies. Allow time for a few more meetings. You will probably get your class list today, along with some information about what the school requires from teachers on the first day. Revise your first-day plans to include those requirements. Arrange all planned assignments and paperwork to help your day run smoothly. Finish making copies, if possible (the machine will be busy today). Assume any textbooks or furniture that is not in your classroom when you leave today will not be there on Monday morning, even if someone has reassured you that it will be delivered over the weekend. Plan accordingly.

(Final weekend): If you weren’t able to get your copies done at school, head to a copy shop so there’s no room for first-day surprises. It’s also possible you will want to go back to school at this point. Many schools are open the last weekend of summer for all the people who need more than ten days to complete their “ten-day” countdowns.

You won’t have the totally-unprepared-teacher dream the night before school starts—that’s because you won’t be able to sleep until 20 minutes before your alarm clock rings. You’ll probably be running on caffeine and adrenaline your first day, but to be responsible, I’ll also pass on some good advice: The best thing you can do is get up early the day before school starts, exercise during the day, and wind down early so you have some chance of sleeping through the night. At least one of us has to.

 

Frequently Asked Questions about Starting School

Q: Should I tell students this is my first time teaching?

A: No.

Q: Won’t they know anyway?

A: Probably, so don’t lie about it. Just add this to the long list of personal questions you try to avoid completely, which also includes questions like “How old are you?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Is that a tattoo?”

Q: I really just have one rule in my class: “Respect everyone!” Isn’t that enough?

A: No! First, it’s not your only rule. Don’t you want students to come prepared? On time? Without candy and gum? Second, the word respect itself can be open to interpretation. Does it mean “No cursing”? “Don’t interrupt”? “Don’t smack your lips and curse under your breath when your teacher reminds you not to interrupt”? Respect is important in a classroom, but you will also need concrete, specific rules that are easy to enforce.

Q: My racial/cultural background is different from that of my students. Will they still listen to me?

A: There is both good and bad news for you: The good news is that great teaching crosses cultural lines. Teachers from every culture have successfully taught children from every other culture. Kids need role models who look like them, but they also need to work with and learn from people who are different. The bad news is that race and culture do make a difference. You are likely to have a few incidents that would have played out differently if you looked or sounded more like your students. No paragraph in any book will change this. Your job is to be the best teacher you can possibly be, and hope the differences between you and your students fade into the background.

Q: Can I count on my class list to be accurate?

A: Most public schools are still processing new students the first week, so kids may show up who are not on your list. Plan to have space for new students and time to write down names and sign schedules. You should also know how to get more desks and think about where to seat kids if you can’t get them desks right away. 

Q: Should I start planning on my own or wait until I meet others in my department?

A: You may be told that your department does something called collaborative planning, in which teachers meet to plan ahead, share ideas, and make sure everyone is on the same page. Though many new teachers hear of this legend, few experience it. Teachers who have taught a subject before have often made their plans already. Some are possessive about the work they’ve put in. Others have little interest in changing their style or already work together informally. As a result, so-called collaborative planning sessions tend to be disorganized meetings that involve neither collaborating nor planning. In other cases, you may receive a curriculum or benchmark calendar your school wants you to follow. Your plans should be flexible enough to adapt to a school-provided calendar, but you can’t go wrong planning your own first week in detail.

Q: Should I try to plan my whole year now?

A: Time is scarce during the school year, so you’ll be grateful for any planning you’ve done ahead of time. Planning the entire year in detail, however, is not the best use of your time and probably not even possible. This year will be filled with surprises that could throw off your schedule. A better idea is to start with a general sense of what students should learn this year – and when they’ll have to take a big, high-stakes test to see if they’ve learned it. Then plan backwards with this information in mind. For this, I recommend using the giant desk calendar that was on your back-to-school shopping list, but any calendar will do. Map out important dates in pen or marker. Include school holidays, state test days, and any other information that is unlikely to change. Also include progress report days and the end of each marking period so you know when grades are due (more on this in later chapters). You will use this calendar to map out academic units so they fit into the rhythm of the school year. (i.e. You don’t want to start reading a novel or preparing a science experiment two days before Thanksgiving break.) Plan in pencil, though, and plan only your first week in detail. By the end of your first week, you will have an idea of how the kids act, what they can do in a day, and whether big, last-minute changes are on the horizon. Then you can block out the next plan-able chunk of time. As you feel more comfortable, you’ll be able to plan further into the school year. Remember that all long-term plans should be simple overviews, not detailed, day-by-day lessons. The goal here is to avoid planning your entire year based on something that may change, but also not to be paralyzed by the fact that you can’t plan everything.

Q: Should I let parents come into the room on the first day?

A: Standing up to parents the first day is hard—after all, they mean well, and you want to keep them on your side. Still, unless you teach really young children, think of a polite-but-firm response to parents who try to question you, fill you in on their children’s personal problems, or inspect your room for safety hazards as they drop off their babies. This is a great gift to your students, also. Kids deserve a clean slate with their peers, and Mommy coming into the room to “kiss her big, brave ninja good-bye on his first day at his new school,” puts a child at a disadvantage.

Q: Should I let students help create classroom rules to show I value their opinions?

A: New teachers often receive this advice. It looks great on paper, but it’s usually not worth the classroom management risk it creates. Let’s face it—classroom rules are pretty standard. Students are not likely to come up with innovative new rules on the first day; they are much more likely to make ridiculous suggestions to test you, or repeat rules from past classrooms where the teacher wrote the rules anyway. Also, just because one student suggests a rule doesn’t mean another will follow it. Rules seem less official when they are made up by kids. Even worse, any rule-making activity takes place, by definition, in a rule-free classroom. On the first day you need to show that you are the leader in the classroom. You make the rules. There will be other ways to show students you value their opinions.

Q: Can I really not smile until Christmas?

A: “Don’t smile until Christmas” is a sound bite of wisdom passed down through generations of teachers. It’s not really about smiling. It’s about breaking character and letting your guard down too early. (More detail on this in the chapter called Your Teacher Personality: Faking it. Making it.) Some teachers are strict the first week but relax the second week because the kids seem to be behaving. By the time they realize it’s too soon, it’s too late. This advice should really be “Don’t smile—and don’t let kids know you have a first name, curse, cry, like kids, want them to like you, or do anything besides eat and sleep when you’re not at school—until Christmas.” Just remember: the first few times you think your class is under control and it’s okay to relax, you’re probably wrong.

 

What Happens If the First Day Doesn’t Go as Planned?

If your first day didn’t go as planned, come in tomorrow and try to regain control. Today, comfort yourself with the following first-day memories from experienced teachers:

“I vividly remember my first day of teaching. I was introduced to the school and my department head by my principal. I was informed of all the wonderful activities in which students were involved. My department head was so energetic and told me she would be in my classroom the first couple of days to help me get adjusted. What I wasn’t told was that my “classroom” would be the media center. There were four other classes of 35 students each, sharing this one large room all day! Let’s add to this madness for a minute: I had no books, and my department head didn’t visit me one time my first year”. —Still teaching after 10 years

“My first day was wild. I had a book thrown at me and a student told me this was her “f*&king” classroom.” —Still teaching after 12 years

“I had these community building activities planned. The kids were supposed to fill out surveys about their favorite activities and whatnot, and then we would share as a group. Well, the students were all boys who had been in the same class for years and hated each other. Several of them had diagnosed behavior disorders. When I called on the first kid to introduce himself, other kids made fun of him before he even opened his mouth. He was a little overweight, and as soon as I read the first question—‘What is your favorite activity?’—all the other boys started yelling, ‘Eating! Ha ha. Eating mayonnaise!’ They did this for the next few questions. I stopped the activity before we got to question number seven, ‘What is your favorite food?’ Needless to say, not much of a community was built.” —Still teaching after 7 years

“I started a month into the school year, so my classes came as overload students from existing classes. It took teachers a while to send students, so in the beginning I would psych myself up and be disappointed but also a little relieved when no one showed up. Then I got one new student. I had to make a judgment call about what to do, and I ended up teaching this kid a lesson I had planned for the entire class. Other teachers laughed at me for that one.” —Still teaching after 3 years

“All I remember are papers flying everywhere.” —Still teaching after 14 years

“I had come into teaching after 17 years as an accountant. Maybe for this reason, I expected students to be sitting quietly at their desks, ready to listen to whatever I had to say. When the bell rang that first day, not one single student was sitting down. Asking them to be quiet, telling them to be quiet, even threatening them with being sent to the office all met the same response: They would close their mouths for one or two seconds, and then at the exact moment I resumed doing whatever I was doing, they started talking again. The loudest my old office got was maybe having a conversation with two people with the dot-matrix printer running in the background. My classroom, by comparison, was like being on a runway with jets constantly taking off or landing. I couldn’t think about teaching. The only thing on my mind was ‘How do I get these kids to shut up?’” —Still teaching after 16 years

“The first day for me was great! It led me to the irrational conclusion that the rest of my year would be as grand, but the joke was on me.” —Still teaching after 5 years

+++++

(C) 2013, Roxanna Elden

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