Author: TCR Staff

Classroom Management

Tips for Setting Up Your Classroom for the New School Year

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The time you spend setting up your classroom at the beginning of the year is important. For not only are you preparing for the arrival of your students, you are also preparing yourself for an entire year of teaching. You need to begin with an organized classroom which has set routines—a classroom that will be run in an educational, enjoyable, yet orderly fashion.

Setting Up Your Classroom

Your classroom must be set up so that it is functional, organized, and a pleasant learning environment for the students (see previous post,   “Tips for Classroom Organization,” for the benefits of a well-organized classroom).

The space, materials, furniture, manipulatives, resources, games, and number of students found in a classroom will vary from one classroom to the next. However, the following hints will make your classroom conducive to effective organization. These ideas will help keep your classroom in order, save you time, and allow you to become the most effective teacher possible.

Teacher’s Desk
Before you place the teacher’s desk in your room, you need to determine how you will be using it during the school year; it can be a working area for helping students, correcting papers, and working on lesson plans or simply a place to store materials. If your desk is primarily a place to store supplies, put it in a corner out of the way, far from students and movement. If possible, remove it from your room altogether. There are more effective storage bins that take up less space than desks.
If your desk is to become a working area, it must be placed where it is readily accessible to you and your students; in other words, don’t have it hidden behind bookshelves or within a maze of resource materials. Your desk must be set so that you can see the entire room and all of the students just by glancing up. You should also have a view of the emergency exit door. Placing the desk diagonally along an outside wall allows you to view the entire classroom while simultaneously providing space behind it for your chair and filing cabinets.

Students’ Desks
Students’ desks should be arranged in accordance to the grade level as well as your teaching philosophy. Younger grade levels allow the desks to be set closer together, while older grade levels need more space. Teaching with cooperative groups permits you to cluster the desks in sets of three or four. Depending upon your teaching style, you might prefer setting your desks in straight rows or groups of two. Keep in mind that students must be able to see you and any visuals if you plan on using a chalkboard, flannelboard, or eraser board. No desks should be hidden from view in any way. Also, if your school requires students to place their chairs on top of their desks at the end of the day, make sure that you allow enough room between desks to be able to put the chairs up easily. When setting up the desks, imagine that students are sitting in their chairs. Make sure there is enough room for the students to sit comfortably. Think about the size of the student in relation to the size of his or her desk, as well as the sizes of the desks you place next to each other. A very short desk next to a very tall desk may result in one banging into the other when they are opened. Avoiding small annoyances like these eliminates undue stress and allows for a more orderly classroom.

Lesson Plans, Teaching Tips

Summer Packets

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Many teachers send a letter to their students just before the start of the school year. It’s a great way to introduce the teacher and get students excited about the coming year. How about including a small packet of summer activities with that letter? See a sample letter here.

Start by picking out your favorite activities from any of the resource books that are fun and cover all subject areas and ability levels (you can search for books by subject area and grade level here or scroll down for sample activities). Then students can pick and choose as they see fit. Designate the activities as optional. Those who complete some activities should bring them in the first day of school. They can share special projects if they want, and the teacher can display certain ones. Give every student who participated a certificate as a reward for these extra efforts during the summer.

The teacher can emphasize that the activities can be done with partners or family members. Again, stress that these are optional. They are meant to be fun, yet can be a learning or reviewing experience. Since many children attend camp for the summer, the teacher may want to include one or two activities that tie in—a journal and picture of a favorite camp memory, for example.

Tips: It is a good idea to send packets in July, about one month before school, when students may be feeling bored. Make the envelope inviting and exciting. Put stickers on the outside and address it using colorful markers. Include a class list if possible, so students can get together and work on the activities. New friendships may develop before the school year starts.

Sample activities to include in your summer packets:

From Creative Kids: Arts, Crafts & More:

From 101 Ways to Love a Book:

Teaching Tips

Ideas for Reinforced Learning During the Summer Months

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Here are some suggestions for continued practice of reading and writing skills during the summer months:

Gifts That Promote Reading and Writing

  • Books, both fiction and nonfiction (includes cookbooks, craft books, biographies, etc.)
  • Magazine subscriptions
  • Models that have written directions for assembling

Reading Activities

  • Reading newspaper and magazine articles
  • Reading recipes and cooking foods

Writing Activities

  • Sending a card or letter to someone far away
  • Writing family shopping lists (for groceries, presents, etc.)

Memorizing Activities

  • Story retelling
  • Songs

Games That Require Reading

  • Trivia games
  • Spelling/Vocabulary games
  • Board games

Reading and Writing Activities Using the Newspaper

  • Cut out words that belong to word families we have studied.
  • Collect interesting pictures. Be ready to explain what they are about.
  • Learn a new word every day. Tell what section of the newspaper it came from.
  • Collect interesting news items.
  • Collect interesting cartoons, and draw one of your own.
  • If your newspaper has a puzzle page for students, try to work the puzzle.
  • Look in the classified ad section. Find a job you would like to have. Try to figure out what the abbreviations in the ad stand for.
  • Design a newspaper ad for your favorite consumer item.
  • Pretend you have made an amazing discovery or invention. Write a newspaper article about yourself.

Other Ideas to Try

  • Play a twenty questions game.
  • Compare and contrast items at a store.
  • Explain all the different things you can do with a variety of objects.
  • Diaries
  • Reading directions for making gifts
  • Reading street signs and maps
  • Writing thank-you letters for gifts
  • Poems
  • Plays
  • Crossword puzzles
  • Word searches
  • Dictate a story to a friend or relative.
  • Write clues for a treasure hunt.
Behavior Management

Student Certificates

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Teachers are often too busy throughout the day to remember to hand out little rewards or certificates to those students who have done something worthy. Usually positive words are the sole way to reinforce positive behavior. However, it is nice for a student to receive something more concrete so they are able to present it to family members with pride. If the teacher cannot hand certificates out regularly, make a point to do so each quarter. On report card day before the teacher hands out the report cards, have a number of certificates to hand out. The teacher can have two or three standard certificates every quarter, but then add new ones and different ones each quarter, as well to keep the surprise. Don’t feel every student must get a certificate every quarter. If all students earn certificates, it eliminates the feeling of a reward.

Some ideas to use for certificates include the following:

  • students who have done the most extra credit
  • students who had no late work all quarter
  • students who had only one late assignment all quarter
  • students who reached their reading goals
  • students who performed their class job well and regularly
  • students with consistently clean desks
  • students who are the most improved in a certain area

Every class will most likely be different depending on the activities the teacher has set up in the classroom. Some of the certificates can be followed with an extra reward. For example, the students with no late assignments may get a “no homework” coupon with their certificate. Students with one late assignment will get just the certificate. The teacher can also include a bookmark with the reading goal certificate.

Tips: Do not announce to the students what efforts during the quarter will earn certificates. The teacher may want the reward to be given for honest effort and work, not simply to receive a certificate. That’s why changing the certificates each quarter, except for a select few, will promote honest efforts.

If the teacher wants to give certificates out more often than once per quarter, a neat trick is to have some generic ones ready. (See below to download award certificates.) Fill in the student’s name and your signature ahead of time. Put two in the plan book each week. This will remind the teacher to find something that student did particularly well that week. The certificate is then ready for the teacher anytime. He or she just needs to fill in what the certificate was for.

End-of-the-Year Certificates
In addition to the quarterly certificates, try doing end-of-the-year certificates in which every student receives one. These are fun, personal certificates that reflect something that student may be known for in the classroom. Some of these can be funny as well. Some examples include the following: the most artistic, the trivia guru, or the most improved in a certain area. (Note: These categories will change each year depending on the dynamics of the class. This is a fun, positive way to end the school year.)

Handy certificates to download and hand out:

Award Certificate
Grade Advancement Certificate
Farewell Certificate

In addition to handing out end-of-the-year certificates, download and hand out the form below to students so they can assess the year for themselves. Keep a copy for yourself — it will prove very enlightening for you!

What I Have Learned This Year