Preparing for Year One

My first year of teaching starts in two weeks.  I am equal parts ecstatic and terrified.  I have no idea what I should be doing to prepare, so I went to the two places I could think of: books and Teachers Pay Teachers.  Here are some of the resources I’ve been using:

The First Days of School, Harry K. Wong

I snagged this one from our classroom bookshelves at school.  I am amazed at how helpful it’s been, and how many specific things it has given me to do.  I’ve started making my script for the first day of school, as well as a procedures binder, two things I never would have thought to do.

The Writing Workshop, Katie Wood Ray

This was my favorite education book I read all through out college.  Katie Wood Ray, along with a wonderful professor, taught me to view writing in a completely different way, both for me and for my students.  I fell in love with the writing workshop the second I began reading, and I can’t wait to start our own fifth grade writing workshop at UTES.  It’s been fun flipping back through all of my old notes in this book to pick out what I want to use for my new class!

Teacher Planner, by the Learning Effect on TPT

I just download this yesterday, and I haven’t printed any of the pages yet, (waiting until I have access to the school workroom again), but so far it looks great.  It includes almost everything I could think of, and a ton of things I wouldn’t have thought of.  Everything is customizable and there are other patterns available too, but I liked the chevron.  I’ll get this baby printed and set up next week and I’ll let you know how it goes!

Loving Writing, Unit 1, by Kelly Anne-Appleslices on TPT

This might be the resource I am most excited for.  I seriously feel like I just found the jackpot with this curriculum.  Kelly has created resources for the entire year, 7 units, each of which looks awesome.  This first unit has lesson plans that will be so helpful in getting my writing workshop set up and running smoothly.  I’m sure I will end up using her other units as well.  The only downside is that it seems like every resource on TPT is aligned with the Common Core and not TEKS, which isn’t a huge deal, I just need to tweak it and search out the Texas standards to see what aligns and what might be missing.  I’m really excited to use this one!

I’m allowed into my classroom on Monday, and I will have so much more I can do once I actually have my hands on everything and can start fully brainstorming and planning and preparing.  I will post again with some classroom magic next week!