Preparing to Teach: Planning Ahead
Thinking ahead to the school year, your head’s probably in a whirl of ideas and good intentions.
“I’ll put up a new bulletin every six weeks. On time.”
“I’m going to have art planned a week ahead.”
“I’ll never miss a student’s birthday.”
“I’ll have all my checking caught up at report card time.”
But those are just dreams. If we don’t take action and make a plan, our good intentions tend to shatter.
A dream with a date is a goal.
A goal broken into steps is a plan.
A plan backed by action becomes reality.
So you can plan. Here’s a list of ideas of things you can plan before the school year even starts.
- Birthday celebrations
- Devotions
- Bulletin boards
- Art projects
- Books to read / a book a week
Birthday celebrations
Decorated cupcakes and ice cream for each of the ten students? That’s over one birthday party a month if there’s no summer birthdays. Oh, and what about the students who have summer birthdays? Children feel left out when their birthday wasn’t acknowledged. So here’s an idea.
Wish each student a happy birthday on the day and maybe get them a balloon or chocolate. Then plan a birthday party for everyone at once some time during the long winter months. And tell them that’s what’s going to happen.
You can go all out for the birthday party. Get everyone a gift. Decorate for the day with balloons and streamers. Add a Happy Birthday banner. Buy a DQ cake and some juice for the party. Or go really big and order in pizza for lunch. Take them to Tim Hortons, or to an escape room and supper.
Or keep it simple. You can make the day feel like a holiday and you don’t have to break the bank. Make cupcakes. Skip class and play games. Buy a few dollar store decorations. Get everyone a card and a simple gift.
You can splurge and give them a memory they’ll never forget or make a simple party and just have fun. Either way, children will love it. And to be honest, I have good memories of both from my school days.
Books to Read
It’s always a good idea to have a stash of books for reading aloud to your students. Pick out ten or so before the year begins. That way you can have the next one ready to read when the last one is done. It’s not fun to skip story just because your teacher forgot to find a new book.
Check out the 101 Books post for some ideas of what to read. We’re working on 101 Books #2 so share books that your students loved.
Here’s a fun one especially for lower grade teachers. Have a stash of short books that you can easily read in a day or a week. Plan for one a week. Then each week write a mini report on the book with your students and hang it up on the wall for a weekly count-up. You might need some extra books to fill in. And the students love getting involved.
Countdowns
I love a classic wrap-around-the-room countdown. They give the classroom a border and a bit of cohesiveness all around. But there’s a lot of other good ideas too.
Like the weekly book count-up mentioned above.
Print a bunch of photos and hang up one a day. Have a mix of beautiful shots and photos of your life. Even get your students to contribute. This one is really great if you’re teaching away from home. You can show the children snippets of your life and family.
Design something to match your theme. If you have an airplane theme, have a weekly info blurb on the development of airplanes. If it’s architecture, feature interesting buildings and designs every so often.
Use your imagination. Put something up each day or each week. Have something up that you move a marker along. But I don’t recommend a countdown that you take down. You start the year with a decorated classroom and immediately start to take it apart. And by the end of the year, a bunch of your colour is gone.
Devotions
Devotions… I hear a lot of teachers talking about struggling to come up with devotions for their class. Most of you develop a schedule that helps out.
- Monday – Sing with the whole school
- Tuesday – Someone from church comes to have devotions
- Wednesday- Bible quiz or Sword’s Up
- Thursday- You have a devotions
- Friday – Sing as a class or Student devotions
With a schedule similar to that, you’ll be making one devotional a week. Whether you’re scrounging through a devotional book, creating one from something your class is dealing with, or just pulling from your personal inspiration, you’re probably going to feel lost sometimes.
Older grade teachers, get a book like Daily Truth for Godly Youth for backup. Younger grade teachers, get a good Bible story book or a children’s story book with good morals to base quick devotions off of. Plan a few before the school year begins to help you get through the first couple weeks or for backup when your brain runs dry in a few months. Here on the blog we’re building a collection for you to fall back on too.
And not every devotional time needs a moral. One I remember loving as a student, we spent the time figuring out how much food it took to feed Solomon’s household every day. We dove into Bible facts and converted measurements to ones we understood and did a bunch of math. And we came away with a different view of the story. So take a story and step deeper into the culture. Add some imagination to help it come alive and make the Bible happenings real in your minds.
Art projects
Art projects – students love them, teachers stress them. You want to make art fun for your students but suddenly cost is adding up and you’re out of time to try out the project.
Get a few figured out before the school year begins. And if it’s going to take multiple art classes, great! That means you have the next week or two figured out as well. Pick up kits from dollar stores or Michaels. They can simplify your planning and sometimes save you money. And they’re also great to have on hand if some other plan falls apart.
Teaching students to draw is great. But either be able to draw yourself or learn to draw with them. Nothing annoys students quite like the teacher introducing art class with “So we’re going to draw today. I don’t know how to draw but I think you should all learn.” Usually everyone gets discouraged and drawing classes end after trying to shade a sphere and a cylinder. Even if you can teach drawing well, mix it up. Because not everyone will love it.
Art is so much more than drawing. Art is creating – anything.
Bulletin boards
Bulletin boards are usually replaced every six weeks – around report card time. So you need six or so bulletin boards for the school year. Planning ahead can help you accomplish this goal too. Create or buy now what you need for the next one or two. Then when the wave of work the first report cards bring hits, you don’t have to worry about coming up with a bulletin board.
Currently, there are around 30 bulletin boards for all different ages on Colour Your Class. That’s an easy option for planning ahead. Buy, print, cut out, and hang. So even if you forget until the last minute, you have options.
Colour Your Class is here to help when your plan does fall apart and you get into those last minute pinches. We’re developing the blog to be a resource you can fall back on. So if you have an art or devotions or something else that worked out well for you, send it over to help someone else out of a pinch. If what you share is posted to the blog, you’ll receive a 5$ coupon code.
So set some goals. Make a plan. And do your best to carry it out. Even if half of your plans succeed, you’ll have a smoother ride than if you don’t plan at all.
