Ideas for Welcoming Students Back to School

In Hawai'i, teachers go back to work on July 28 and students return on August 3. July has always signaled Back to School Mode for me as setting up a classroom is NO JOKE. Since I'm not in the classroom this year, I figured I'd get you started with some ideas (that you can save for later) for Welcoming Students Back to School!

Send a Personalized Postcard Introducing Yourself

I wrote a post about Building Relationships with Students Before the Year Starts and shared about sending postcards to students to introduce yourself.

When I first began, I just used to handwrite each postcard. However, technology has enhanced the possibilities. Here are variations on how to personalize your welcome/introductions.

For each of the ideas listed below, you will need to create a QR code with a link for students to scan with a smart device. 

1. Simply introduce yourself via video and let them know how excited you are to meet them.
2. Record a classroom tour and attach it to the postcard that you mail out to students.
3. Read a book to help ease those first-day jitters. Another variation could be to read half of the book and let students know that you’ll finish the rest on day 1. 
4. Ask students to bring something special to them and be ready to share about it on the first day.

Here's a tutorial on how to add a Voice Recording to a QR Code. The steps for creating the QR code will be similar for video as it was for audio. 

Assign Seats Ahead of Time

This is something that I always did so that no student felt left out. I work at a school that has about a 50% military population so we have new students all the time. You never want a student to be told that they can't sit somewhere because the seat is being saved for a friend. To avoid this (and unnecessary chattering between students) I would pre-assign seats. 

Send Students Home with a Little Welcome Gift

Giving gifts to your students are totally unnecessary, but it’s something extra that I always loved doing. I LOVE a good pun and can’t help myself from sharing them with my students. I always gave a little treat to those students who showed up for our Meet and Greet! 

For gift ideas and already made tags, I've got you covered!

Share Advice From Your Former Students

This idea will take advanced planning from the previous school year, but I like to have my former students create brochures or Google Slides presentations giving my new students advice on how to be successful in the 3rd Grade. During the year of COVID- I needed to adjust and turn my brochures into Google Slides presentation. I decided to then add a QR code link to a bookmark which would then be shared with incoming students. 

Here are some photos of what the student bookmarks look like. You can hand these out to kids on the first day or Meet the Teacher Night!

What other ideas do you have for Welcoming Students Back to School?! I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Until next time. Aloha,

11 Must Have Chapter Book Series in YOUR 3rd Grade Classroom

One of the best things about being a teacher is being able to stock your classroom up with great books for kids to read. In the early days of my career, I spent the weekends hunting down good deals to grow my class library. When I left my classroom, I easily had over 1,000 books in my class library! You can check this post out for ideas on how to grow your class library on a teacher budget!
Today I'll be sharing 11 Chapter Book Series that will surely be a hit in your 3rd Grade Classroom Library! **This post contains affiliate links

I Survived Series

Who Was and What is Series

The Boxcar Children 

Goosebumps

Rainbow Magic Series

Junie B. Jones

A-Z Mysteries

Magic Tree House Series

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Dork Diaries

Who Would Win Series

If you're also interested in a list of Popular 3rd Grade Read Aloud Books, you can get that here! 
 Aloha,

What New Teachers Can Do to Prepare for the School Year

If you’re here reading this post, you must be a new teacher that is eager to start planning for the school year. First of all, let me Congratulate you on landing your first teaching job!!

I wish you the best school year ever :)

Since you’re here, I’m also assuming that you are a planner! Most people will tell you to relax and enjoy your summer (I will, too) but if you’re like me, I wouldn’t be able to because I would always be thinking ‘what can I be doing to plan’. LOL, so I’ve got you covered with 5 things you can start working on now! 

The best thing you can do to start preparing for a successful school year is to start familiarizing yourself with your grade level standards. If your state uses Common Core, this site has great resources for unpacking the standards to help you better understand them!

Select the 2017 unpacked content ‘your grade’ math standards. This resource will help you to know exactly WHAT your students need to know and be able to do, you’ll also see visual examples. 

Now that it’s summer and you have the time (and you’ve familiarized yourself with your grade level standards) start creating and organizing your Pinterest Boards or Instagram Collections. There are SO MANY ideas and resources readily available. I remember when I first started teaching, I spent hours scouring the internet trying to find different ideas on how to teach certain topics. Save yourself time by doing the searching NOW rather than later.

Be sure to label your boards (Ideas for teaching Fractions, Beginning of Year Activities). It’d be a good idea to look through the resources you’re pinning, and only pin what you know you want to try or use. This will help you to be able to go directly to your board and pick something to use. It’ll save you a tremendous amount of time later. 

IG is such a great place to gain new ideas from fellow teachers. Search hashtags to find other teachers in your grade that you can learn from. Be sure to only follow accounts that lift you up and motivate you. As you get into your year, always remember that the teachers you are following have all started in a similar place as you. 

General hashtags like #iteachthird or #thirdgradetribe can be searched and similar hashtags will pop up. You can follow the hashtag on IG, then when you see posts you like, click on the profile, check it out and follow if you're into their feed! :)

You can find me on IG @teachinginparadise

Having clear and specific routines and expectations for everything will help to set your students up for success. Students should know what to do and how they should be conducting themselves for literally anything you might ask them to do.
This may seem tedious, but it will truly help with your classroom management and eliminating transition times or student issues with one another.
Some examples of things you could plan for are:

• How will students enter your classroom
• Where and how will they submit work?
• How will you collect important papers and/or notes from parents
• What supplies will students keep in their desks?
• How will you dismiss students to get things from their cubby?
• How will the use the classroom sink?
• What will your bathroom procedures be?
• How will you handle student supplies? Sharpening of pencils?

The more you can plan for, the better you’ll be. You can access a copy of the planning template that I use and also see the things that I create procedures/routines for here

Last but not least, RELAX and enjoy your summer!

The year will be here before you know it. You’ll have a never-ending to-do list once the year starts, so enjoy your summer while you can!

Find the time to take care of yourself, relax, and have fun!!

You may also be interested in this post: 5 Tips for New Teachers

Aloha,

5 Tips for Writing Sub Plans

1. Be Explicit

Be very clear about what the sub should be doing and what the students should be doing. As the teacher, YOU expect that your students know what is expected of them and that they will follow those expectations when you’re not there……but this isn't always the case.

I’ve done my fair share of subbing in classrooms, luckily I know the teachers and their procedures. Too often than not, kids try to bend the rules and get away with things. It’s helpful to clearly outline all expectations so that the substitute knows exactly HOW students should be working (quietly at their desks? No walking around, etc).

Short on time and want to just get your plans done? Here are all the templates that I used to make my own sub plans.

2. Label and Organize 

Label all of your worksheets and assignments with post-it notes so that your sub. knows EXACTLY what to give out when. Be sure to use the same language in your plans as your labels, this helps to avoid any confusion. If you have several different assignments for one subject, you could use color-coded post-it notes and designate which color to hand out when. (Send home math homework-(blue post-it). Click here for a tutorial on how to print on sticky notes.


In addition to labeling everything, organizing all of your papers in the order that they are to be handed out is helpful for your substitute teacher. This takes out the guesswork and sets them up to avoid any confusion.

3. Student Transitions

Make it easy for your substitute to keep track of when students need to leave for special classes or services. In the designated time block, write out who needs to go where (and at what time). Use a different colored font so that it stands out. 

*Bonus tip: leave a note on the board so that older students can watch the clock and remind themselves. 

4. Plan for Quick Finishers

Provide your substitute with a checklist to keep track of which students finished what assignment. I always advised the sub to collect work back at the end of the block so that he/she could keep track of who is finished and/or who needs additional time.

Let the sub know what students should do when they are done with their work. It's helpful to include a list of activities your early finishers can do. Since the sub already has a list of students who need additional time to complete assignments, there won't be any issues for them to direct the quick finishers to the extra assignments.

*I also like to include a page in my sub plans that help the substitute come up with activities or things to do with the class with extra time. Sometimes lessons will finish earlier than expected, so providing them with a backup plan is always helpful! I include a one-pager with different activities and instructions as well as the estimated amount of time the activity will take, that way subs can choose which ones will work for them! If you'd like to take a look at that, it's included in my Emergency Sub Plans.

5. Be Concise

Too often than not, substitutes come to school right before the bell and often don’t have time to read through your entire set of plans. Be as clear and concise as possible. Include enough information so that they are clear on what to do, but don't add TOO MUCH wording/instructions as it may get glossed over as they are rushing to read through plans as students are coming in.

It helps to break up the text and blocks so that the subs can read through the information in chunks. 

Last but definitely not least, plan for emergencies! You never know when a bug will hit you hard or you find a dead car battery when you're already running late to work. Having a set of Emergency Sub Plans for those last-minute, unplanned situations that occur will save you A TON of stress! 

Set your plans up in an Emergency Sub tub or Binder. 

If you're a 3rd-grade teacher, I've got you covered fwith an already written and ready to assemble set of Emergency Sub Plans! All you need to do is add specific information to your class, students, and schedule using the editable pages! You can find that set here. 

Aloha,

8 Letter Recognition Activities for Toddlers

I began exposing my son to his letters at around 2.5 years old. He isn't the biggest fan of "learning" so I try to make it fun for him so that he doesn't realize he's learning. Today I’m sharing 8 fun toddler-approved activities that helped my son with learning and identifying his letters. The best thing about them are that they are all easy to do and very low prep!

In the very beginning, we just worked on letter matching. This process is important in allowing toddlers to differentiate that letters look different from one another, some have curved shapes and some have straight lines. As he got the hang of matching letters, I began telling him the name for each letter and had him repeat it back to me. For every match he makes, he is now required to say the letter name. We use this same structure for most of the activities below. 

Materials Needed: 

Magnetic dry erase board

Magnetic Letters

Dry erase marker

For this one, just write random letters on the dry erase board. Place magnetic letters along the bottom of the board. As your toddler chooses a letter, tell them the letter name and encourage them to find the matching letter on the board. Have them place the magnetic letter over the written letters.

*Try to stay away from using letters that look the same in the beginning (b/d, p/q).

Once your kiddo is done, you can start all over with new letters :)

 

My son is obsessed with dinosaurs, so I created this printable to encourage him to work on learning his letters. 

Materials Needed:

Flat dish

Rice (you could substitute with oatmeal)
Dinosaur letter cards
Dinosaur letter mat

I had my son dig through the rice to uncover letters. He pulled the letter out, I told him the letter name, had him repeat, then he found the match on the board. We continued this process. We’ve also switched it up by letting him use a paintbrush to brush away the rice. 

This one was definitely a hit! I stocked up on a TON of Easter Eggs one year after Easter was done and got them for like 10 cents a bag (or something crazy cheap like that). So I have eggs on hand all the time and use them for tons of activities.

I filled the eggs up with the dino letter cards (same as the above activity) and hid them around the house. Little man went hunting for one egg at a time, opened it, then placed it on the letter board.

As always, as he opened the egg,  he was required to say the letter name and then place it on the board.  For the letters he wasn't sure of, or if he made a mistake, I would just tell him.  

Grab a paper towel roll, write letters randomly throughout the roll. Get the dot stickers (purchased here from Amazon) and write the corresponding letter. Have them match it up by placing the sticker over the letter on the roll. You could also extend this (and all other activities) by having them match the lower case with upper case letters. As you can see- this is one our earlier activities.

It's also great for their fine motor skills, peeling off those stickers can be tricky!

This specific one was to help him learn the letters in his name. I just printed out giant letters on cardstock paper and taped them to the wall.

I used letter stickers that I already had and also hand wrote a bunch of the letters for his name on the dot sticker sheets. I cut off a section of the dot stickers and hand them to him, he uses what he has and matches up the letters on the stickers to the letters in his name.

In this video, we were practicing the letters in his name but it could be used to work on any letter of the alphabet! Whatever you choose to work on, us sidewalk chalk to write the letters out. Call out a letter and have your child shoot the letter with a water gun. 

I also showed my son how to shuffle, so had him practice that as well lol.

Another obsession of my little on is CARS. He has a million little cars and can play with them for hours. I used the same Amazon dot stickers and wrote letters on each car. I picked up this painting roll paper from TJ Maxx, but they have them here on Amazon, too. I drew out little rectangular garages and wrote the letters of the alphabet. I used construction paper to make little roads. 

I threw all of the cars into a bin and left this out for him to discover. As soon as he laid his eyes on it he immediately ran over. He picked up his cars, noticed the letters on them and began looking at the mat. I told him that they were "letter garages" and he had to find the right garage for each car and park the car in there.
Little man had a total blast driving his cars down the road and parking them in the garage.

I have my son trace the letters on each sheet before starting. Then, I read him the "secret mission". I remind him that he will be looking for the big and little letters.

My son is working on coloring in the lines, so I have him color in the squares. If your child is a little younger, they could also use stickers to cover each letter.

As he finds the letter, he will color it and say the letter name out loud. This helps him to remember what each letter looks like as well as the name associated with that letter.

Once my son has completed the mission, we will take out a toy animal (if we have it) or he will use his fingers and walk along the path he just colored. We do this to make sure that it is a "complete" path and that he has successfully completed the mission.

Finally, I will have him count how many "steps" it took to get the animal to where it needed to go.

If you want to follow along on my little man's learning journey, be sure to follow me on Instagram! I'm always posting stories about the learning activities my son and I do together. You can also catch old activities on my highlight reel #teachatoddler!

I hope that you were able to find something fun for your little one to help them learn their letters. If you try any of these activities, I'd love if you share with me by tagging me on Instagram @teachinginparadise

{Affiliate Links were used in this blog post}

Aloha,