Back to School for Teachers Too!

As we near the end of summer it’s time for teachers to think about starting the new school year (even if you work year-round in child care, September will bring many new changes to your class). Here are some tips for getting ready for a great year:

1.   You gotta love school supply sales! This is the only time of year that you can buy spiral notebooks in bulk for your classroom journals for less than $10.00. It’s suggested that children have time to write and draw in journals every day. They can write about books you’ve read in circle time, draw pictures of their families and write and draw their best ideas about the world around them. Plan to have at least 4 notebooks for each child for the year. So if you have 15 children in your class that means you’ll need 60; at the back-to-school price of 10-15 cents each, that’s $6.00-9.00, depending on where you shop! What a deal and what an investment in your children.

2.  Take a “beginning of year” picture of each child’s face. Save the photos to a word document, copying and pasting them to create multiples of each child’s photographs. Print a page of photos (about 2” x 3” per photo) for each child and use these for name cards, cubby labels, journal labels, classroom helper charts, and other labels. Create a folder of everyone’s photos that you can use throughout the year.  Children will be able to “read” each others’ nametags by identifying the photos – and will love seeing their own faces all around the room!

3.  Refresh your commitment by taking a course or reading a book that will help you in your work as a teacher.  Then take some time with your co-workers to share what you’ve learned and how you can apply it to your own classroom.  Learning and sharing something new will help you understand your children better and will give you the tools you need to be an excellent teacher!

Being smart, money-saving, think ahead so we’ll have plenty all year teacher, this is one way we can be kind to children.