See You In September

The first day of school can be one of the most stressful days of the year for both teachers and students. We are all meeting each other for the first time and attempting to read cues and form an opinion about the rest of the year based on information from the first day. I could not take the stress and needed to find a better way.

Why do we stress ourselves out about this? In my eight years worth of first days (well, actually, we have block scheduling in my district, so I have 2 sets of first days every year - one in September and one in January) I have learned that every single thing that I think on day one is untrue. Nearly a decade into teaching and I have decided that day one is now dedicated to learning about my new students and forming a trusting relationship with them. We complete team building activities and I have them create an "about me" collage. I use the collage to dig deeper and ask questions about their lives. I use this time to find out more about my class and how we will work together to get to our goal.

I am looking forward to meeting all of my new students and seeing where this year will take us!

Good luck to everyone on their first day!