There are so many things to keep track of at the beginning of the school year. There’s so much information to make sure your students and their parents know! I recently made a sheet of teacher contact cards. To along with that same idea, here’s my class contact page. Print out the page, write in the information and then run copies for your class.
Click here to download the free printable:
Contact Information – back to school night
It’s really helpful, if not essential, to have open channels of communication with the parents of your students. That all starts with sharing contact information. Here’s a free editable file you can use to make your own teacher contact cards. Hand these out to parents at the beginning of the year or throughout the year as needed. Encourage parents to keep this in their wallet or somewhere they won’t lose it, so they can communicate to you conveniently and quickly if needed. Enjoy!
Click here to download the files (2 styles):
Teacher Contact Cards – Editable
Teacher Contact Cards – soft colors – Editable
My friend is teaching a bilingual class this year. I made her these homework coupons or homework passes (or whatever you want to call them). They’re blank so that you as the teacher can write in the value of the coupon before you copy them. Read my post about classroom reward ideas if you need some inspiration.
Click here to view the coupons: Classroom Coupons – English
Classroom Coupons – Spanish
Click here to view my other set of free classroom coupons.
There are many ways to organize subject journal. Here’s one way to separate a spiral notebook into sections, or a single notebook into two different subjects.
Here’s a sample of how you can format your page: anchor chart tab for math journal. You can type whatever you want on the tab. Print and cut into strips. Glue anchor chart/show my work tab in middle of spiral notebook math journal. When you are making an anchor chart with the class, have each student copy what you are doing into their journal. Or when you pass out math definitions, examples, charts, or whatever that you want students to glue in their journal for future reference, have them start writing and gluing at the beginning of the book. When the student is just showing work or writing different ways to write a number or story problems, etc., have them go to tab and then start that sort of work there. That way, your student has the more pertinent information in the front of the journal and it will be easier for students to use their journals as a reference.
Teaching is a big job. It can get overwhelming to plan for, remember and execute everything you’re supposed to. In an effort to help a good friend who’s starting teaching this year, I recently read a great article by Karen Zauber and it got me thinking about questions teachers should ask. I’ve put together a list of some questions all teachers should ask at the start of the school year and periodically throughout the school year. Some questions are for you to ask yourself, and others are for you to ask someone else. Please comment below if there are any important questions I missed!
Establishing the Climate of My Classroom (To Ask Myself)
Conducting My Class Efficiently (To Ask Myself)
Reaching & Encouraging My Students (To Ask Myself)
Applying Proven Teaching Techniques (To Ask Myself)
Establishing Discipline (To Ask Myself)
Miscellaneous Questions (To Ask Myself)
Miscellaneous Questions (To Ask My Principal or Fellow Teachers)
One of the hardest skills for kids to learn is to keep track of many tasks on various time schedules. Providing students a weekly homework assignment sheet or planner. I’ve made two versions for you to use in your own classroom, or with your own children. I recommend that if you don’t use a planner in your classroom you provide one to your students’ parents for them to use with their families if they’d like. Here they are!
Click here for the free printables:
Weekly Homework Tracker – Horizontal
Weekly Homework Tracker – Vertical
I’m a firm believer in teaching kids to thank others and give compliments. This printable is intended to give kids a space to write a short friendship note to 3 classmates. You can do this activity for Valentine’s Day, the end of the year, or whenever your class needs some bonding. I recommend printing one page for each kid so they can write 3. You may even consider assigning one or all of the recipients to ensure everyone gets one. In addition, It may be a good idea to read them before they’re distributed just in case…
Click here for the free printable: Friend notes printable
I like how this door includes a picture of each kid dancing, since dance is the theme of the door. That could make for a really cute bulletin board also. Choose a verb and take a picture of each kid doing the verb. Use the photos as the decoration on your bulletin board.
This also reminds me of how important it is for teachers and their students to show gratitude to others. I used to allow my kids to make thank-you cards for staff and teachers as fast-finisher activities sometimes. It’s so important to teach upcoming generations about gratitude. Hopefully we are each doing our part to show thanks ourselves and teaching younger people to be thankful.
Squarehead Teachers 