First things first — take care of YOU. It’s hard to go back from a break!

While one of the best parts of a teacher’s job is the breaks during an academic year, it can also be a tough transition. So be good to yourself this week.

To make your first day back the best possible day for YOU, try to:
*Go to bed early the night before
*Wear something cute and comfortable
*Pack something you love in your lunch
*Plan something fun or relaxing to do after school.

On to your students! Here are 12 tips for resetting your classroom expectations and making those first days back as productive and enjoyable as possible.

1 – It helps if you first “reset” the class environment before your students return. See my post about doing that HERE. If you have not had a chance to do any of this, try to get to school a little earlier than usual on your first day back from break. (Yes, I know that sounds awful. Bring extra coffee. 🙂 Do what you need to do to make your room look warm and welcoming and ready for the new year. Change the date on the board, change the calendar, hang some new posters or charts, put some new books out on a display — whatever you can do to make things look fresh and new.

2 – Greet your students at the door. While this is a good practice to do every single day, it’s especially important after a break. This is the best way I know to really gauge the “mood” your students bring with them when they return. They might be tired, they might be happy to be back, they might have been sad or hungry during the break. Assure every one of them that you are happy to see them.

3 – It’s okay to be honest with your students about how hard it can be to come back to school routines after a break. I usually talk a little about how I tend to stay up later, sleep a little later, etc., so I’m a little tired on the first day back. Being “selectively vulnerable” with your students is a great trust generator and culturally proficient strategy that helps your students connect with you.

4 – Reward your students quickly for everything that they do right in the first days back after the break. Whether it’s earning points toward a reward or whatever your classroom or school behavior reward system may be, use it to your advantage during these days!

5 – Talk with your students about this time being a great opportunity to “reset”. Get your students talking (to partners or in small groups) about fresh starts and how they help us. Talk about how routines & procedures help everyone be more productive so we can all learn more and enjoy the learning.

Be positive about the whole thing instead of sounding like it’s such a chore to have to review rules and expectations. Also, assume they don’t remember anything. 🙂

Talk to your students about their own expectations. While you might have done that at the beginning of the year, it’s a good time now to ask them what they expect their classmates to continue to do in the new year. Let the kids lead the discussion and restate what they expect, now that we are entering the second half of the year.

6 – Unlike the beginning of the year, all of your students probably know each other by now! So instead of doing “get to know you” type activities, use your best engagement strategies throughout the day. These allow your students to talk to each other while also getting back into the routines of academic work. If you can’t think of any good engagement strategies, HERE is a reference guide to some Kagan cooperative learning strategies that work for every subject area!

7 – Think about your top three procedures for your classroom.

Here are mine: how we enter the classroom and get to work quickly, how we do turn & talk or think/pair/share, and how we transition (to change classes, end of day, etc.) Review those three key procedures. As you go through the day, if there is some small procedure that you see needs review (not blurting out or when to sharpen pencils, for example) re-teach that part at the point of need. (In other words — don’t spend an hour in the morning going over every little procedure for your class.)

Instead of your having to do all the talking or explaining, have your students discuss them (using turn & talk with a partner or triad), then share. If time allows, a fun way to review is to ask a student to model what NOT to do, then have another student model what to do instead. You always want to end this modeling with the correct model, not the incorrect one.

8 – In my last post about resetting your classroom environment, I suggested listing what is going well in your classroom and what you might want to improve. This is also a good conversation to have with your students. If you do this, try very hard to listen to what they share and try not to dismiss their suggestions. As they list their ideas and discuss, remind them that your classroom is a “benevolent dictatorship”. You will listen and take their thoughts into account, but you might not implement every single thing they suggest. The buck stops with you, in other words.

You could do this as a brief activity when you get to that part of the day OR you could do it all at the beginning of the day. I find it’s helpful to do a few of these early in the day, then do others later in the day. It seems to keep kids’ enthusiasm for the activity at a higher level.

9 – One way to keep track of all this is to start a set of Google slides (or on some kind of chart to post). When you review the procedure and kids talk about what is working, list those steps. Then, when changes are suggested (that you approve), add those to the list. Everyone can see what you are all agreeing to and it encourages buy-in since they all had a role in naming the expectations.

10 – Have your students do some reflective writing in journals about what they think about their year so far and what they would like to do to make it even better during the second half of the year. I use our class dialogue journals for this activity. Read about how I use those journals HERE.

11 – Read aloud, even more than usual, during the first days back. This is a calming and “bonding” activity for you and your students. I listed some good read-aloud books in my resetting classroom environment post HERE.

I will also start reading aloud a new chapter book this week. Here are some of my favorite options:
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Front Desk by Kelly Yang
The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty
Savvy by Ingrid Law
Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullally Hunt
Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson

12 – Here are some fun activities to do in the first days back:
*Year in Review for 2019
*What’s Your Word? Student goals for the new year
*Welcome Back from Winter Break task cards

I hope that some of these tips will help you reset your classroom expectations and get back into the best routines with your students. Watch for my next post on new year self-care for yourself!

Do you want more guidance with resetting your classroom? I’m creating a mini-course with more step-by-step tips. Sign up for the waiting list HERE and I will notify you when it’s ready! (Signing up does not obligate you in any way.)

Happy New Year! Winter break is nearly over and I’m already thinking about going back to school. It’s a great time to reset the classroom environment, behavior expectations, and winter self-care.

I focus on the classroom environment first. We’ll get to the other stuff in a later post!

Believe it or not, the beginning of January up until spring break is usually the best teaching time of the year. Most students are ready to come back to school after winter break and eager to get back into a routine. It’s a great time to “reset” your classroom and one way to do that is to think about the environment and how you might change things up in the room itself and how you might change your own plans and mindset.

Another thing to keep in mind — you are at the halfway point of your school year! Whether it has been a great year so far or a tough year so far, you are halfway through. Let’s make the rest of the year the best we possibly can!

Here are 10 tips to start doing that.

1 – If you set any teaching goals for yourself at the beginning of the year, it’s a good time to review those goals. How are you doing?

Are there things that you have accomplished or made a natural part of your routine? Cross them off the list and congratulate yourself!

Are there things that you have completely forgotten about, but aren’t all that important? If so, cross them off the list too — they don’t matter.

What about the rest of the tasks? First, re-evaluate whether they really matter at this point in time. If they do, can you break them down into smaller, more bite-sized tasks so that you can easily incorporate them into your routine? Are there any one-time things you can do and then they’ll be done? Figure out how to add them to your to-do list for the month.

2 – Speaking of to-do lists: take a look at your January calendar and make a to-do list for the month. What will need to be done this month? (Report cards come to mind — ugh.) What meetings are coming up? Is there any meeting that you need to prepare for? What will need to be graded?

3 – I find it helpful to go into my classroom for a couple of hours over the break and do some reflecting and goal setting there. Somehow, when I’m in the place where the stuff happens, it helps me think about what changes I want to make, what I can do to make something easier or more efficient, and how I might want to change some things. Two questions that I ask myself are: What’s not working here? and What stresses me out when I look at this?

4 – Think about what you would like to do better or differently for the next part of the year. You might think about this in terms of the next quarter OR for the rest of the year.

I do this by making a giant brainstorming list. Here’s a page from my notebook:

When I have listed every single thing I can think of, I go back and categorize the list. Possible categories: subject area, organization, routine, decor.

Here’s mine (O = organization, R = routine, M = math, Rdng = reading):

In each category, I then prioritize how “urgent” this change is. If it’s something that really needs to be done right away, I prioritize with an A. Something that needs to be done within a month gets a B. Something I would like to get done within 90 days (or longer) gets a C.

Then, within the prioritized lists, I identify if this is something that can be done quickly (with an asterisk) or something that needs more time or thought (with a star). If it’s something quick, I add it to my monthly or weekly to-do list. If it’s something that needs more time or thought, I schedule a time to focus on that.

As I do the categorizing and scheduling, I also reserve the right to eliminate something from the list. If it’s not that big of a deal or if I just don’t have time to focus on that right now, I take it off the list!

5 – I know I’ve been going on and on about all the things to change. But it’s also important to think about what is working well for you and for your class. Is it your morning routine? Are you implementing restorative practices circles? Implementing #classroombookaday or just doing more reading aloud in general? Whatever is working well, write it down and keep doing it! When they return, you might even ask your students to share what they think is going well in your class.

All of this planning and reflecting are part of being a lifelong learner. As much as possible, share this practice with your students. It’s a great way to model your own thinking and learning and a great reflection option for them to do at the beginning of a new year too! Encourage your students (and yourself) to try something new, give up what is not working for you, and keep an open mind to learn from others.

6 – Consider using some sort of midyear reflection questionnaire for your students. I like the “How’s it Going?” form from Cult of Pedagogy.

7 – It’s also a good time to change up your seating arrangement or your classroom furniture arrangement. While I try to change my seating chart at the start of each month, I make sure to do that when we come back from winter break in January.

8 – Declutter and clean up your classroom. And when I say “declutter’, I mean throw stuff away. If it’s “dead” (markers, ratty books, broken pencils), toss it. Do you have stacks of papers that are extra copies or that don’t need to be graded? Recycle them. According to the website Psychology Today, getting rid of clutter increases your sense of confidence and self-efficacy, it energizes you, and it reduces anxiety.

9 – As you declutter, make a list of the things you would like to stock up on when you have the money to do so or when the items are on sale! Here’s an example: post-it chart pads, Expo dry erase markers, a heavy-duty pencil sharpener, Flair pens, lots of pencils, chart markers.

10 – Think about read-aloud books you will share with your students. Here are some favorites for Black History Month, which I start reading aloud in January:
My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King by Christine King Farris
Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport
Freedom on the Menu by Carole Boston Weatherford
Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine
Freedom Ship by Doreen Rappaport
The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles
Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
28 Days: Moments in Black History That Changed the World by Charles R. Smith, Jr.
Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull
From Slave Ship to Freedom Road by Julius Lester
Our Children Can Soar: A Celebration of Rosa, Barack, and the Pioneers of Change by Michelle Cook
Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco
Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinckney
Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library by Carole Boston Weatherford
Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony & Frederick Douglass by Dean Robbins
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison
Little Legends: Bold Men in Black History by Vashti Harrison
A Child’s Introduction to African-American History: The Experiences, People, & Events That Shaped Our History by Jabari Asim
Bedtime Inspirational Stories: 50 Amazing Black People Who Changed the World by L. A. Amber
Young, Gifted & Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past & Present by Jamia Wilson
Black Women in Science: A Black History Book for Kids by Kimberly Brown Pellum
100 African-Americans Who Shaped American History by Chrisanne Beckner
Have You Thanked an Inventor Today? by Patrice McLaurin

Not strictly black history books, but these books have awesome stories to share with kids:
Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World by Susan Hood
She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World by Chelsea Clinton
First Generation: 36 Trailblazing Immigrants & Refugees Who Make America Great by Sandra Neil Wallace
Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America by Emily Easton

Watch for my next post about a January reset for classroom management and behavioral expectations!

Do you want more guidance with resetting your classroom? I’m creating a mini-course with more step-by-step tips. Sign up for the waiting list HERE and I will notify you when it’s ready! (Signing up does not obligate you in any way.)