Favorite New Teacher Resources

Despite all that preparation, I learned my first lesson in teaching that day in the first 5 minutes. Because I was such a recent new hire, my students had someone else’s name listed on their class schedules. The large sign I made that said “Welcome to Ms. Harrison’s class!” to avoid any confusion when students were searching for my room, ended up confusing every student I had. 

About 3 minutes into the 5 minute passing period, I still had zero students in my room. My pre-planned itinerary for the period allowed me some flexibility (I prepared for surprises, too!), but I still only had about 4 minutes allocated for that. 

Anyways, it was right about this time that a brave student came over and showed me their schedule that I realized what was happening. My careful plan inspired by Harry Wong’s book The First Days of School to welcome each student individually, ask for their name, tell them where to sit and what to do, then move on to the next one was about to have to go into overdrive if I wanted my schedule to work. I had 32 students to do that with, now all in under 2 minutes. Surprise: It took 10.

All in all, I ended up getting through about 3/4 of the activities of I had wanted to, I forgot to enter attendance for periods 1 and 3, and I ran out of water to drink at about noon (I brought 3 bottles with me… and it still wasn’t enough!!). I also realized that although my placement of the turn in bins was definitely efficient, it also meant that whenever the door opened, wind would blow the papers inside the bins around the room. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!!