Chapter 12 Response to: Discipline and Management

by April

I can completely understand your apprehension with the first few days of school. Every year it's a brand new set of kids and you are starting all over. It's intimidating but it can also be exciting. You have a fresh chance! I love that! If I didn't do so well communicating with parents last year, I know that this year I have a new opportunity to do better! If I didn't set clear enough expectations last year, I know that I can try again this year. I think the key to those first few days is preparedness and organization. You need to have very clear ideas in your mind about how you want it to go. Things will come up and you may deviate from that a bit, but you must have a plan. Down time, slow transitions and teacher instructions that last way too long are all things that lead to classroom management problems, especially when everything is new. The text had some great ideas as I'm sure you saw.

I'm thinking back to how some of these things looked in my preschool classroom. The first day of school we always had name tags ready for students and materials set out for students to jump right in to a fun activity. Although after a few days our morning routine involved finding their name, putting it up to show they are "here" and getting a job for the day, we never started with that on the first day. The kids would enjoy a fun activity and then we'd all come together for circle time where we'd talk about finding our names and getting jobs and we'd talk about expectations and things like that.

Just know that kids can read you. Be confident, have fun and well prepared and you'll be great! And I know I've said this before, but confidence can be faked. Trust me, I do it all the time. I'm sure I'll be incredibly nervous for the first day of school, but I have no intention of letting my students or their parents in on that little secret!