As part of the CTPP grant initiative we are initiating a blog to support you in your first few months in the classroom. The title of the blog is "CTPP Springboard to Success"and periodically you will receive information that should be helpful in your early days of teaching. In the weeks ahead, I would love to have you send in pictures and classroom events that can be posted and shared on the blog.
Now that the start of a new school year is a little over a month away, your heads have to be spinning with the challenges of setting up new classrooms and the eventual arrival of your students. The beginning of any school year is exciting, but also stressful. As you prepare your classroom, remember to leave plenty of space to display student's work. A classroom becomes a student's "home" when they help to make it warm and inviting. Don't spend hundreds of dollars on purchased bulletin board materials, but save space for children's creations.
In the next weeks, browse through Harry Wong's book The First Days of School. The beginning chapter states, "The First Days are Critical. What you do on the first days of school will determine your success or failure for the rest of the year. You will either win or lose your class on the first days of school." p3 The website The Busy Educator has a summary of the major concepts covered by Wong. Take a look!
As you know, teaching videos can help solidify thinking about classroom procedures. The internet site Teaching Channel offers video snapshots of highly effective teachers working with students. To reinforce Wong's thoughts about the critical first days, I found two videos that showcase seasoned teachers on the first day of school. The clips were filmed in England and while the teachers' accents are charming, the strategies for the first day of school are worth watching. The first video, "Setting Expectations on the First Day" is aimed at elementary students, and the second video, "Tough Love: First Day of School" is geared toward middle school kids. To access the videos, type the titles into Teaching Channel's search box.
In saying that a classroom is a "community," then, I mean that it is a place in which students feel cared about and are encouraged to care about each other. They experience a sense of being valued and respected; the children matter to one another and to the teacher. They have come to think in the plural: they feel connected to each other; they are part of an "us." -Alfie Kohn
