Classroom Survival Kit

Hi guys! Happy Friday! I’m sitting at Starbucks and wanted to stop by and share some must-haves for every classroom. When these ideas were originally spinning in my brain, I was trying to think of what would be most helpful for brand-new teachers! There is SO much to learn your first year and having a few simple systems in place can make all the difference! But as the ideas evolved, I realized so many of these ideas are things any teacher could use!

You all know how much I swear by my Teacher Binder! You can read more about putting one together here. You can truly use a filing system too, I just think it’s SO helpful to have important papers together so I can take them to meetings, have available for lesson planning, or as a quick reference! Even if you don’t keep a binder, there are some forms that are super important in staying organized.

I always, always, always keep parent information easily accessible. It’s so much easier to keep up with phone class and emails when I can just grab their form and have it all right there for me!

I send these home at the beginning and keep them together in a binder. Then I actually transfer them onto ONE form like this! 🙂 I made it a freebie for you that you can grab here! You’ll want to get the Who Tells Your Story and Part of Me free fonts so the formatting stays the same! 🙂

My first year I didn’t keep track of conferences at all. 🙁 We had to turn in a log to our admin in May, and I had to go through and piece together when they were with my email and calendar…whoops!! 🙂 Now I keep a form that I can quickly fill out after each conference so I always have a record.

If you follow me at all, you know that I believe the teacher-student relationship makes all the difference! At the beginning, especially for a new teacher, it can be overwhelming knowing about all of your kiddos. Writing little notes helps remind me what they love and easy ways to start conversations, help them with their writing, and more!

I try to make sure I’m communicating with parents way more about positive than negative! I try to reach out once a 9 weeks, but once a semester at the bare minimum! I keep track of that too so I don’t forget anyone! 🙂

I also believe in writing things down! It’s SO easy to forget things when they are in our head, and keeping track of ideas, questions I have, and reflection makes it much, much easier to come back to. When thinking about my classroom, I try to get everything on paper so I don’t miss anything. When we miss things, they know and they sense our weakness ;)!

Even when our entire week is perfectly planned and every lesson goes exactly like it should, sometimes we can still find ourselves beaten down and just plain worn-out. Teaching is HARD. Its hard mentally, emotionally, AND physically. I always make sure to have motivational posters around my room for when I’m feeling discouraged. Teaching is hard but it’s also pretty amazing.