Teacher Advisors' Best Tips: Back-to-School
Strategies for Organizing Your Classroom and Welcoming Students
From Our K-12 Teacher Advisors
Find the best ideas for kicking off the start
the school year. Our teacher advisors share organizational tips like
how to create a color-coded system for different classes,
icebreakers such as a match up activity that gets teens motivated to
learn, and more recommendations for settling students in for a great
year of learning.
Meet our advisors
for each grade level and see their ideas below, which include
ready-to-use reproducibles and checklists to help you implement
their strategies in your own classroom.
This past year, our district boosted
efforts to promote college readiness. The initiative spans
elementary through high school levels, so it's a concept I integrate
into my 3rd grade classroom. Before the school year even begins, I
set the theme for the year: our class will be spending the year
preparing at, "Valley University," which is what I call our class as
a way of setting a serious tone for learning. To introduce this
theme and start promoting higher education I send my incoming
students a letter during the summer that welcomes them to my
classroom. I even include a picture of me at my college graduation.
The letter home also sets up our
second year-long theme: our class is a team. In fact, I explain to
students that on the first day of school they will become part of
the official "Team 16," the name my class adopts since we will spend
the year in room 16.
The first week of school I begin to integrate the university theme
into team-building activities. To incorporate the Valley University
theme, students spend the first week’s computer lab session
researching a college of their choice from a list of schools I
generated. Students research the mascot and location of the school.
- To get kids excited about the school year, I show a
video of last year’s students introducing the new students to
the grade. The kids summarize all the fun things they learned
last year, and give examples of how to exhibit the character
traits on a daily basis.
- We “shoot” off the year with a bulletin board that
says STUDENTS SHOOT FOR HIGHER LEARNING –
students get a basketball cut-out (from paper purchased at a
crafts store) and they fill out their statistics: age, birth
date, favorite subject, favorite book
- Students are given a basketball pencil and an eraser
topper as a visual reminder that they are always “shooting for
higher learning.” The supply bins for their desks are also
plastic basketballs, which contain white board pens and erasers,
glue sticks, and scissors.
- Students make college megaphones shouting out messages (shout outs) about
what they hope to accomplish this year and what they dream to be
when they are older.
- We make Students decorate their homework folder with a variety of college mascots. I laminate the folder and students use it to carry daily homework to and from school.
The purpose of these first-week activities is to get students excited about learning. I want them to be enthusiastic about attending school and to feel positive and successful towards education.
Read the Marissa Ochoa Blog on Teaching 3rd Grade
Scholastic Community - Back-to-School Night - Inside Marissa Ochoa's
3rd Grade Classroom
