First Day of School Series

If I haven’t shared this enough with you (haha…I am known to repeat myself-ask the Hubs), I plan to teach this fall in a new school in a new state soooooo I have been getting my little booty in gear!  I am rereading an old faithful, The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong and reading some new books to ensure my future students have the BEST year possible!  Confession: I have sticky notes sticking out and hand written notes in my notebook because of this book

amazon.com- I highly recommend this book to all teachers

It is stated at the beginning of the book that most teachers do not have training on how to prepare for the first days of school.  Most of us are prepared to teach the content but are lost on how to start the school year.  With this thought in my head as I read, I decided to share some of the things that stood out to me.  And it shall be called first day of school series. 

*Disclaimer: This series is based on my own understanding of The First Days of School and my personal experience.  If you would like to read all of what Harry Wong and Rosemary Wong suggest please buy a copy of their book *

I dabbled in a few first day of school posts at the beginning of 2013 when my Tico teachers were beginning their school year (one of my first blog posts! Ahh!) and this will be building on those rough blog posts.

SO! Down to what I read this week!  I will only be posting on Fridays so I don’t get over whelmed with TWO series. 

The first section of The First Days of School addresses the teachers—each chapter addresses a different idea.  I will break the other chapters into smaller posts but since this section is about us I thought I would just do a short little recap. 

• Good teachers do things right consistently
• Good teachers are effective because:
• they set positive expectations,
• they are good classroom managers, and
• they know what they are teaching.
• Good teachers have teachers they look up to, ask questions to, and share with
• Good teachers research and use proven techniques in the classroom like:
• Wait time: waiting 3-7 seconds after asking a question before calling on a student to answer <-- this really makes a world of difference, I have used in my own class
• Extensive reading: having a classroom library or access to school’s resources about subjects taught that students can read beyond the things read and discussed in the class

My desk for the day-ah! the life of a nomadic blogger

That was all that stood out to me in the first chapter!  Next week things will be in more detail as I tackle the second chapter.