What to Teach the First Week of School | PD in Plain English

Week two of PD in Plain English has arrived! 🎉

I love talking about the things that I wish I had known sooner in my teacher life, and I can say with total confidence that the first weeks of my first few years of teaching were a total blur. So today I wanted to chat with y’all about the first week of school, and what I believe is the most important thing to teach!

Having conversations with teachers about what’s really going on in their rooms is my absolute jam, so please join the conversation with me on Instagram if you agree or disagree with what I’m about to say! Let’s get started…

PD In Plain English | What to Teach the First Week of School (and how to teach it)

I recently had someone who was making the move from upper grades down to second ask, “What do you teach the first week of school?” and I just kind of looked at her, dumbfounded, before I finally managed to say…”umm, like one million things”.

It was a terrible answer, and she will likely never ask me for advice again 😂, so let me try to redeem myself by answering that question here!

It’s true. I teach one million things that first week of school. It’s why I couldn’t just give a succinct answer on the spot. But if I could time-travel, I would have said, “I teach the kids what I expect of them”. Because, what I expect of them is probably close to about one million things!

I once read a quote that went something along the lines of “Spend the first two weeks teaching rules and procedures, or be prepared to teach them all year”. I know I just botched that, and I don’t have a source so don’t @ me, but you get the gist. The time to teach your kiddos how you want them to behave is RIGHT when they enter the room, or you will be repeating yourself, wanting to bang your head against the wall in December when they STILL don’t remember to raise their hand.

Plan your fun, first week of school activities, and lace them with expectations.

Turn EVERYTHING into a teachable moment. When you bring them to the carpet to introduce yourself/do a read aloud…leave time to teach them HOW to come to the carpet. You know you don’t want a stampede, trampling each other and tripping over chair legs, so leave space in your day to teach them explicitly what to do.

I don’t mean that you should stand at the front of the room and say something vague like, “Ok, when I call your table, please come to the carpet”. That’s still not teaching them what to do. Instead, say, “I am going to call you by table, and when I do, I would like for that table to stand, push in their chairs, and come stand on the edge of the carpet. I am going to be assigning you carpet spots as you reach me, and these will be your spots for the first few weeks. Once I have given you your spot, please sit quietly and patiently until everyone is seated”.

Yes, that’s a lot of words. Yes, that’s exhausting. If you don’t feel like you’ve been hit by a bus after your first week of school…you probably didn’t do it right. #teachertruth (but I promise it is so, so worth it to lay this groundwork now!)

Repeat that kind of language when you play a fun get-to-know-you game, and introduce a way to find partners. My go-to is a game called ‘sticky hands’, because it is ZERO prep (can I get a hallelujah?). This is how that script would go:

“You are going to be playing a game in here this year called “Sticky Hands!”. This is how it works. When I say ‘Sticky Hands’, you are going to silently stand and hold one hand up in the air. You may walk around the room, without making any noise. Do not go behind my teacher desk or into the cubbies; just walk around the desk and carpet areas. When I call out “Sticky Hands” again, you will freeze and high-five the person closest to you! You should not run across the room to get to a friend. This is a chance to get to know each other, so please be a kind partner to whomever you are next to. That will be your partner for this round.”

WHEW. That’s a lot of talking. The first week calls for a LOT of talking, But now, when you call ‘sticky hands!’ to do a quick think-pair-share at the end of a science lesson in 2 weeks, you don’t have to be off-pace with your teaching to show them how to do this. They already know!

Make the ‘why’ behind your rules a two-way conversation.

You’re going to need to show the kids how to line up, how to walk in the hallway, how to enter a Related Arts teacher's classroom, how to sit in the cafeteria, how to replace a broken pencil, how to play on the playground equipment…the list goes on and on and on.

This is what I’ll tell you: You need to attribute real-world examples and rationale to many of your expectations. It’s even better if the kids brainstorm these reasons themselves, because they are going to hear your voice a LOT over the next week, and it’s better if they get to join the conversation every once in a while. The stuff they help you explain is the stuff they will remember. Keep that in mind.

Last year, I asked the kids why they thought I wanted them to push in their chairs when they left their desks. I got these answers:

‘It makes our classroom look neat.”

“If we leave them out, someone could trip.”

“If there’s a fire drill, we wouldn’t be able to exit quickly.”

“These chairs and desks are the school’s, and we should treat them with respect.”

The kids already KNOW why they need to do this stuff, y’all. Make it a two-way conversation, rather than a long-winded lecture, and they will be more apt to remember what you talked about when they come back the next day. Plus, adding that empathy piece to your rules and expectations makes it feel less like a list of things that shouldn’t do, but instead it’s a list of ways to take care of each other…and that’s really what rules and procedures are there for.

Do everything with patience and grace, and remember that you will need to repeat these directions again next week. ;)

The BEST thing I’ve ever heard about teaching expectations is to remember this: these kids may have been in school before, but they’ve never been in your classroom, in this grade level, with this particular bunch of kids.

We all know that the school year is a short 10 months. It has parts that feel long, but there’s a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short time. These kids are trying to navigate new dynamics with peers, a new teacher, new rules, and lots of new content, that keeps getting more rigorous. Saying it once does not mean you can wipe your hands of teaching rules and procedures.

You will need to say everything several times during the first month of school. Get ready to touch on a few of them after fall break. Ease in after winter break with a refresher. Post-spring break will ABSOLUTELY call for a review of your expectations. They are kids, and kids forget. They all have different rules at home. It takes YOU time to adjust to this new room of kids, so expect the same of these little people in your care.

To give you some guidance on which expectations to teach, and what activities to do, I have some ideas for you! I have a FREE expectations planning page that you can print and log your ideas for how to may want to teach expectations to your class(es). Click the photo to download!

I also have a fun first-week activity that allows your class to get to know each other in a fun new way! They fill out these puzzles, cut them apart, and then work in small groups to put puzzles back together, allowing kids to get to know several classmates at once. It also doubles as a cute bulletin board display! ;)

And, if you’re needing some visuals/examples of behavior expectations, these BEST-SELLING expectation posters are perfect for any bulletin board or classroom wall!

Happy back to school season, y’all!