Parents, do you ever wonder what teachers really care about? Here are 10 things teachers want parents to know:

1 – please get your child to school on time. Coming in late gets your child’s day started on the wrong foot and often leads to stress and anxiety.

2 – let us know about family issues that may affect your child at school (a move, a family member’s illness or death, separation/divorce, a pet’s illness or death).

3 – we need your help. Listen to your child, yes, but also listen to what we tell you about what is happening at school. We are not judging you so please do not make excuses for your child. We need to work together to help your child overcome hurdles.

4 – understand that we are in this profession because we care about children and truly want the best for your child. Please listen to what we have to say before automatically believing your child’s side of the story. (Most children are motivated to NOT get in trouble, so their side of the story will understandably be a little skewed. It’s not a bad thing, but please understand that you probably need to get more perspective on what happened.)

5 – know that if we ask you for support in some area, we are not asking you to “fix” or to punish your child. We need your suggestions for how to help them overcome their current challenge.

6 – please keep us posted with any changes in how you can be reached (by phone or email).

7 – please ask us how you can help us in the classroom. Sometimes we need volunteers to help with specific activities, sometimes we need extra snacks provided for students who are hungry. Sometimes we just need a pat on the back! But the offer to help in some way lets us know that you value the work we do.

8 – please read any communication that is sent home from school. Whether it’s paper, an email newsletter, a text message — please read it. We are making every effort to keep the communication channels open. We need you to meet us halfway.

9 – please return any forms (permission slips, conference time requests, etc.) as soon as you possibly can.

10 – read to your child as many evenings as you can — even when they are reading independently. Make reading enjoyable and something you do together. Not only does this give you valuable “quality time” with your child, but it models the importance of literacy.

It’s always good to have some kind of classroom reset when coming back to school after a break. But an expected break due to weather might need even more of a reset.

My beautiful state was recently hit hard by Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael. In my town, we were spared the worst of the storm in terms of devastation, but we still missed several days of school. We know that some parts of our state and region are out of school “until further notice”.

I was SO proud of my students today. For our #classroombookaday, we read What Do You Do With a Problem? This book talks about every problem having an opportunity. My fifth graders were all asking, “how can we help?”

If/when your community has been impacted by a natural disaster, here are five ways to build community when you return to school.

1 – Use read-alouds to generate conversation.

2 – Allow students to tell their stories, verbally, in writing, or both.

3 – Try to keep the focus on how your students “survived” and were resilient. How can they extend this resilience into other areas of their lives?

4 – Try to keep the focus on helping others. No matter how bad things are, someone else is always in a worse place.

I was struck by this lesson a few years ago when I was working as an instructional coach in a low-income school in my state. Most of these students received free breakfast and lunch, and backpacks of food for the weekend. Some were homeless. Most students in the school were in a constant state of food insecurity and some were in a state of home insecurity.

Yet, when a tornado hit a school in Oklahoma, these students were all about creating a project to raise money to help the students in Oklahoma. I realized something important — helping others gave them “power”. Not necessarily power OVER other people, but the power to DO something to help others. I was changed forever by seeing their reaction to others’ tragedy.

5 – As important as it is to allow students to talk and share, it is also important to get back on track and into the predictable routines of school as soon as possible. Children (and probably all of us) thrive on structure and routine, so the more quickly you can get “back to normal” in your classroom, the safer the students will feel. This is also a good time to review your classroom expectations and norms, trying to focus on the positive things your students are doing.

Do you have other ideas or suggestions! Please share!

The start of school is well underway by now, and I’m taking a moment to stop and reflect on the first six weeks.

If you have never heard of or read anything from the Responsive Classroom, I suggest that you check out their work. One of the most influential books I have read in my career is Teaching Children to Care: Classroom Management for Ethical & Academic Growth, K-8 by Ruth Sidney Charney.

In this book, Ruth talks about the importance of the first six weeks/30 school days and how it takes this long to build community and to establish the routines and norms of the classroom. While we also begin to teach content during this time, we need to remember that we are still in a process of getting to know our students as people and as learners. We are also still teaching OUR routines and the norms of how we treat others in our classroom.

If your school, like mine, has school-wide rules or behavior guidelines, we still need to identify what those guidelines look like and sound like in our own individual classrooms.

Due to the Labor Day holiday and some missed days due to weather events, we have had only two “full weeks” of school (being in school all five days). This week I found myself frustrated a few times, thinking “they should know how to do this by now” when it came to routines and procedures. Then I caught myself thinking back to Ruth’s words in Teaching Children to Care:

I spend the first six weeks of school teaching my children how to behave. It rarely takes less time, sometimes it takes more. It takes six weeks even when many of the students were in the same class last year, and have been in the same school for several years. I cannot presume that what was so clear last year is remembered and accepted this year. I start again. I do not apologize for this use of time. It is not a waste, not a waystation along a more important course of educational mastery. It is the critical foundation of learning. It is the first curriculum. I call it “classroom management.”

I then looked at my calendar and counted up how many days we have actually been in school. We were on day 21. I relaxed, realizing that we are still in “training” mode and that it’s okay to be where we are. That does not mean that I don’t continue to reinforce/remind/redirect. And that we don’t continue to practice routines as needed. It just means that we are still in the earliest stage of school, getting to know each other and defining how our classroom will work together.

I also took my own advice and made a list of all that is going well so far.

In addition, I checked my list of community-building activities which I have collected through the years and decided to do these eight activities in the next two weeks:

1 – Start a “wonder wall”. This idea is described more fully in The Curious Classroom by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels. Kids can add their own wonderings or questions for which they want to find answers.

You could find bits of time during your week for students to research their own wonderings, or you could make this an anchor activity to go to when they have some free time. I am going to implement some form of Genius Hour this year to allow time for students to research their wonderings, even if it’s more like Genius Half-Hour!

2 – Create/revisit identity maps. This idea also comes from Harvey Daniels’ book The Curious Classroom as well as Sara K. Ahmed’s new book Being the Change. For this activity, you model your own identity map/web with such topics as: personality traits, physical features, family, culture, ethnicity, languages spoken, religion, nationality, favorite foods, age, gender, traditions, hobbies, things you love, what you are trying to be better at doing.

Then students make their own maps and share them with partners or small groups before sharing more with the whole class. We already did this during the first week of school and it was very powerful as kids shared part of their maps. It’s time to revisit them and see what we could add.

3 – A couple of afternoons a week, I will jot down every child’s name & a few notes about them. Nothing fancy, just a list of what I’m thinking or have noticed so far. This shows me a lot about who is getting my attention and focus (and for what), and who may need more attention from me. (If I don’t have much to say about them, I probably need to work on getting to know them better.)

4 – Here is a similar tip. I’m not sure where I first heard this idea, but I have done it numerous times and it’s always interesting. On your drive home, say the names of each of your students. Count them off as you say the names. If there is anyone you cannot name without referring to your class list — that’s the kid to pay close attention to tomorrow.

5 – Use dialogue journals with your students. You might offer some prompts for them to respond to, but I encourage my students to tell me whatever they want to tell me. Make it a safe space for students to write to you and tell you what they want to share. When I respond to the journals, usually the response is written. However, sometimes I think the issue needs a longer conversation and I will find some time to talk privately with the student.

6 – Greet your students at the door every day when they enter your class. Just smiling and saying “good morning”, “I’m glad you’re here” start the day or the class off right for both you and the student. Saying phrases like that actually make you have a positive attitude toward the child you are greeting (even if you did not have such a positive attitude toward them when you saw them). This is also important to do when you change classes. This gives students a “reset” if something negative happened earlier in the day.

7 – Include your students’ interests in your lessons wherever possible. For example, if a math problem involves cupcakes, you can mention your students who love to bake. If a soccer game is mentioned in a book you’re sharing, you might mention your students who play soccer or who like soccer.

8 – Consider using social media with your class. Set up a class Twitter account or Instagram account. Keep it private for just your students and families, especially if you post photos. Including your students’ ideas as you write a daily post is a great way to review, share memories together, and include parents in the learning process.

I am looking forward to an awesome year with this, my 21st class of students. I hope these tips will help you reflect and reset for an awesome year as well!

Today I am beginning my 28th year of teaching. What have I learned after all these years? It’s this: there is nothing more important in the first days of school than building a classroom community and our relationships with students. Yes, the content will be taught, but establishing the classroom community remains the most important “thing to do” first.

So how do we start? Here are my 12 go-to activities.

1 – Read aloud, read aloud, read aloud. This is THE quickest and best way to build community. Why does it work so well? Stories bring people together. Everyone, from our youngest learners to our high schoolers, enjoys listening to and discussing a great story together.

I make a point to read aloud to students every single day, but I especially use it on the first day of school to help me bond with students and to help students connect with each other. Keep a stack of good picture books available and read one whenever you have a chance during that first week of school.

Reading aloud regularly (preferably at predictable times) helps establish classroom “rituals”, enabling students to feel safe and connected to the classroom. Consider participating in #classroombookaday. See more here.

2 – Learn the correct pronunciation of each child’s name. Ask the child. A simple “tell me how to say your name”, said with a warm smile, is all it takes. Names are important and communicate respect and caring about the individual.

3 – First-day “morning work” – you’ll be busy collecting forms, possibly collecting classroom supplies, greeting everyone — so it’s important to have work that students can do independently, but that will also give you a lot of information about them.

Something that asks them questions about themselves is perfect. (I have a ready-made questionnaire on Teachers Pay Teachers HERE.)

As they’re completing this work at their seats, you have a chance to observe how they get started working, how they interact with other students, etc. Read these morning work questionnaires as soon as you can. Make it your own first day of school homework. 🤗

4 – If you don’t do a morning work questionnaire, you can still gather that information in a whole group.

Form a circle on the carpet (or pull chairs into a circle). Go around the circle and have students answer pre-made questions.

Keep these simple at first and work your way up to “bigger” questions such as “name one word that describes how you are feeling about school this year”. To do this, you might use an object that you pass around the circle (like a beanbag or stuffed animal).

You might share something first and then pass the object to a student beside you. Continue going around the circle until everyone has had a chance to share. (You can read more about starting class circles in my post HERE.)

5 – Create scavenger hunts for students to complete with partners. It could be a scavenger hunt in which they have to find someone who went to a beach this summer, has a younger brother or sister, likes pizza, etc. Here’s an example.

Another option is to create a scavenger hunt of areas in the classroom. This activity also gets students moving around and talking to each other.

6 – Use whiteboard messages. These are quick questions such as “what is one thing you are thankful for, what will you do to make today a wonderful day,” etc.

There are plenty of pre-made questions online or for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers. It builds community for students to share these answers in a way that other students can see. Thus — the notion of answering the question on the whiteboard.

If that is a problem (or if it gets too crowded at the board), you might try an online tool such as Padlet or a Google doc. Post the question and allow students to add their answers to the question.

7 – Keep most bulletin boards and hallway displays bare at the beginning of the year. Have the students do some work in the first week that can be posted. This shows your students that this classroom belongs to all of them as much as it belongs to you. It’s also fun to take lots of pictures the first week and post them on walls or displays as well.

8 – Discuss your class/school expectations and create something that shows what these expectations look like/sound like. Try to focus this activity as a “what do we need/what helps everyone” activity rather than a “these are my rules and you need to follow them” activity.

9 – Share things about yourself. Kids love to find out things about their teacher which makes you more “real” to them. It’s also a good way to find common areas of interest.

I have a Google slide presentation with 50 facts about me. They’re not anything major — just things about my family, what I like, what I don’t like, etc. Think about some facts about yourself that you could share!

Another variation on this idea is to share one fact about yourself from the first day of school to the last (such as “I am now reading . . .”, “This weekend I tried sushi for the first time”, and “I am learning to bake the world’s best cinnamon rolls”, etc.).

10 – Name homework and sharing – read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes (or any other picture book about a child having to explain their name.

Other great options are The Name Jar and Alma and How She Got Her Name.

Discuss how names are part of what makes us special and unique. Ask students to ask their grownups about how they were given their name and what it means (if known). Share these stories in partnerships or in a class circle.

11 – Consider having students write about some goals they are setting for themselves this year. If you post their writing, you might also have them create a self-portrait of themselves to include.

12 – Brown bag activity — send home an empty brown paper lunch bag along with a list of possible categories they might use to fill their bag.

Categories: likes, dislikes, hobbies, family, favorite color/food, etc. They can include a picture of something (like their pet) that does not fit into the bag or is not allowed at school! Have just a few kids (maybe 2-4) share these daily. (If it goes on for too long, kids get restless and don’t listen to each other.)

Want a ready-made version of this idea? It’s in my TPT store here!

I hope that these suggestions are fun and help to build the best classroom community for you and your students. Have an awesome school year and enjoy building relationships with your students!