This study guide prepares students for a quiz and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on pronoun use, verb tense, and using dictionaries.

This study guide prepares students for a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on a range of grammatical skills.

This study guide prepares students for two quizzes and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on parts of speech, fragments, and types of phrases.

This study guide helps students prepare for three quizzes and a test in A Beka's Grammar and Composition IV.

This study guide prepares students for a quiz on errors in agreement, usage, and mechanics and for the final exam in A Beka Grammar and Composition.

This study guide prepares students for a quiz and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on jargon, idioms, triteness, and wordiness.

This study guide prepares students for a quiz on errors in agreement, usage, and mechanics and for the final exam in A Beka Grammar and Composition.

This quiz tests students' ability to rewrite common idioms and tests their understanding of writing terms.

This study guide prepares students for a quiz and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on subject-verb agreement.

This study guide prepares students for two quizzes and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on grammatical terms and parts of speech.

This study guide prepares students for two quizzes and a test in A Beka Grammar and Composition on verbs and pronouns.

John Mark outlines forty objectives, five requirements, and the materials and methods for a class focusing on the physical earth and a Christian orientation towards it.

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The school board asked if you would be their first-grade teacher, and you said �yes�.� Congratulations!� An exciting journey lies before you.� Perhaps you always wanted to teach and now you finally have the opportunity.� Or maybe you never really considered the possibility, but when they asked, you wanted to try teaching because after all, you do love children.

First year teachers face a large learning curve.� You have so much to learn about lesson plans and schedules, grading, report cards and recess, classroom management, birthday parties, and the student who struggles in Math.� At some point, you may find your enthusiasm waning.� Feelings arise like, �Why did I ever think I could teach?�

I assure you that it will be okay.� You will have good days and bad days: days when you love your cherubs and days when you cannot wait to send them home.� Days when schedules seem slippery and the children argue at recess.� Days when first graders forget how to sound out words.

Being a teacher is rewarding and exhausting all at the same time.� When I stepped into the classroom the first day of that first year, I did not realize how important self-care is.� To face the challenges of the school day, one must be well prepared physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

What do I wish I had known?

The Importance of Spending Time with Jesus

Teacher, you will not teach well if you do not spend time at the feet of the Master Teacher.� He is the one sustaining you, giving you ideas on your feet, helping you teach that history class when you are not sure how you are going to pull it off, giving you patience with the student who cannot subtract, and wisdom for the child crying because his team lost a game.� Spend time in Jesus' presence often and let Him love you.

The Importance of Sleep

Years ago, I read an article where the author suggested that teachers should get used to functioning on five hours of sleep at night.� Perhaps that author needed less sleep than I do, but young teacher, do not skimp on your sleep!� Five-hour nights will not sustain you over the long haul.� You will have more mental clarity and more grace to face the challenges when you are not so tired.� Seven to eight hours a night is probably not too much.� Some teachers may need nine and occasionally a few ten-hour nights a week.� Figure out what you need and then go to bed, even if your work is not completely finished.

The Importance of Good Food

If you are a young twenty year old living with your parents and mom cooks your supper every night, you are blessed!� Mom's food is so comforting at the end of a long day and sometimes chatting with your family around the table may help the stressors of the day feel less stark.

As a busy teacher, it is an easy temptation to eat easy, quick food on the run.� Cereal and hot dogs, cheese sticks and granola bars, cupcakes and snack mix.� If you live alone, this can be especially tempting.� While there is a place for quick food, try not to make that your normal routine.� Getting enough protein into your diet will sustain you longer than easy calories.� Your brain is working hard to keep up with all the duties of teaching.� Feed your brain well!

The Importance of Hobbies and Exercise

�I could work all night and still not be prepared for tomorrow.� You may feel this often during your first years of teaching.� Yes, in many ways, a teacher's job is never done.� However, schedule time for things you enjoy.� Play at least two games of volleyball.� Let yourself enjoy a sewing project or spend time in your garden.� Read for pleasure.� Take a hike or a picnic, or spend an hour discussing poetry with your friends. Use your watercolors and paints.� Drink that iced mocha at the coffee shop with your friends, even though your lesson plan isn't quite finished for tomorrow.� Take a walk and enjoy the beauty of the sunset. A �nose-to-the-grindstone� mentality all the time will result in burnout.� Refresh yourself often. *

*Disclaimer: I speak these words for teachers who battle with perfectionism.� If you are of such personality that you can easily sacrifice your science class for an evening of spike ball,� then perhaps you need to spend only an hour playing spike ball (instead of two) and spend the second hour planning that science lesson and writing some goals for your Bible lesson tomorrow.

Will things always go as you planned?� Absolutely not.� You may experience a short night or oversleep or lack the time needed to prepare fully for the reading lesson.� Be gentle with yourself when you are tired, hungry, angry, or frustrated.� Jesus sustains the teacher who calls out to Him.� He is bigger than your sleepless night, your hastily crafted sticky note lesson plan, or your students' low spelling scores.� You can trust Him to fill in the gaps when you have done your best.

Be proactive about self-care and trust Jesus.� He will help you navigate your school year successfully!

I just realized how much children depend on routine and things being the same. You change one thing they'll let you know. Even though they want something out of the ordinary sometimes. Like the other week, I decided I was going to move the ball boxes. Did not tell anybody, I mean it wasn't like something us teachers had agreed on or anything, I said, "I'm just going to move 'em and see what happens." Well, my recess was done, I told my children, "I put the ball boxes here so when you're done put the balls in here." Well, our recess was done, Room Three came out, zoom right to the place where they're used to having the ball boxes. "The ball boxes are not there," and they don't look around, they just zoom into Brother Troyer's room and say, "Where's the ball boxes?" And it was just, you know, just a small incident but it proved to me how much children thrive on something being constant.

Well to me a routine is super important. Children thrive on it. They know that I'm going to keep the same routine every day, they know what to plan on and then I can also hold them to that. You know, if they knew that they were supposed to have their corrections at this time and they didn't then there's a consequence for not having that done. So it makes life easier for me and them both.

So I have class periods every day and I know not every individualized school has that but I have been pretty firm on that ever since I've taught. It is, we start out our morning, we have Bible first and then we do math and then after that is language.

I just feel that it's the teacher's responsibility to instill that in them 'cause they're not going to just, most of them, will not naturally come to that. That way we all stay together as a class because it's chaotic if you let some be here and some there in their work and I get frustrated because it just, it just doesn't work well. I don't want to be lecturing this over here to this student and this over here to this student because this one's fast and this one's slow. And so, you kind of have to find the spot where, between the slow student, to where they can try to keep up and to pull back the fast student.

When they come I try to give them a few basics and I add along the way 'cause it's overwhelming to, the first day of school, to say, "This is how it all is," it's too much. They can't remember it.

And I always have it up on the wall so that they can learn to read clocks and so they can see what time, what time the clock, or the hands are supposed to be when it's a certain class period. And while it gets kind of boring the children do depend on those clocks every year, especially when they're just learning what my schedule is. I've seen it work.

I always require them to make sure that they take care of corrections, from the day before, which I write on front of their Light Units. And then they may not do the new stuff, whatever new material they have, they may not do that before I lecture that to them. They can work on the We Remember, which is simply things they've learned previous days, and then they need to be working on that subject in that class period only.

Another reason I think it's so important is these children are not old enough to be self-disciplined in knowing how to manage time. So it's my responsibility to manage that for them. And hopefully by the time they become older it has helped them to learn how to manage their time for their classes or for their subjects.

Sometimes students, even with this setting, they have troubles so I make lists, and say, "Don't think about anything else except for this and don't think about anything else except for this," and then they can mark it off and they can see what they got done and feel good about what they've accomplished. If they don't get this subject done within the class period, they will not finish it up the next class period until that subject has been done. So, if they didn't get done in math we just put math away while we do language arts. If they get done with their language arts early then they come back and finish up math.

Now that has a potential of stacking up if you don't get anything finished in every period. But my experience has been, almost always, the children learn that that's what's going to happen and so they learn to manage their time and get it done.

That's not saying we don't have plodders, I always, usually, I have one or two that just, you have to push and push 'em. There again, it's not that I never make exceptions. Students that struggle, you can tell that it's not that they're not trying but they simply struggle in school. You have to make exceptions for them. Say they got done early this time in this subject, I'll say, "Go ahead and get started with the next thing," but I might not let the fast student because the fast student needs to be slowed down, otherwise he'd get all his work done in the morning and wouldn't have anything to do in the afternoon.

I usually tell them, "You just need to do something quiet at your desk," and the ones that routinely get done early, they can go, I let them go look at a book, like, they can look at any of the books that are back there on the shelf or maybe they have a library book that they read and if I see them doing that I know they're done with their work for that period.

(When students are done with their work for the day, they can visit the classroom play area.) Yeah, it's just they're not allowed, I do not let them play back there until after last recess and then they have to say their Bible memory, they have to say a verse and usually one that we have not worked on in the morning. And then once they've said that, then can go back there after last break and they play games—and today they were all reading, which is not, that was kind of abnormal, really—draw on the chalkboard and anything that's just not too disruptive.

If there's any children in a classroom that maybe come from a home that is less than ideal, maybe things are anything but routine there, they come to school where's there's one place that they can depend on that things are going to be the same every day. And it's security for them. If a struggling child or... come to school and at least provide some sort of haven of something, a safe place, a routine place, a secure place that they can... they know what to expect next.

Recess.� Do you rejoice?� Moan?� Feel uncertain?� Yes, I have been there too.� Recess is designed to give students a break from study, and a chance to exercise.� Our little people's minds are working quite hard, and they deserve a break from the intensity of sitting still.� If you have not planned well, however, recess can become utter chaos.

What do I wish I had known about recess?

Plan, Plan, Plan

First of all, collaborate with your co-teachers.� Perhaps you can divy out recess duties.� Aim to have at least one adult monitoring the playground at all times for the safety and well-being of all the children.� However, there is no need for 5 teachers on the playground.� Plan which adult will be on the playground for each recess.� This serves a two-fold purpose.� First, you know when it is your turn to be monitoring recess.� Second, you can take advantage of your recess breaks to plan for your next class or gather art supplies.

Establish Recess Line-ups

Establish recess line-ups on your very first day of school.� Lineups help to eliminate chaos and provide an orderly way to enter and exit the building.� If your students line up in your classroom or the hallway, they can follow you or the recess teacher outside.� This eliminates that child running through the hall and cuts down on pushing/shoving.� Each child knows their assigned place in line and follows carefully, keeping hands and feet to themselves. Everyone hears the teacher announce the game and the itters.

Line-ups also cut down on arguments.� Each person has their assigned place in line, so there is no arguing about being first or last or butting in line to get beside the person that is �my new best friend.� Students simply find their assigned place, walk outside or to the gym, and wait for instructions from the teacher.

Have Methods of Non-Verbal Communication

Nonverbal signals are essential on the playground, especially for very large groups of students.� A whistle is my favorite tool.� Teach the students the meaning of various signals.� My signals often looked like this:

• 2� Short Whistle Blasts = freeze in place and become silent. Sometimes I want to make a new announcement about the game or name new itters.� If the students do a silent freeze, I can make announcements without competing with their yelling and general recess chatter.
• 3 Short Blasts = new game. Students may come and gather around me for instructions for a new game.
• Teacher's Raised Hand = silence from everyone, eyes on the teacher. I use this at both the beginning and end of recess.� While the teacher is explaining the set-up of the game, students should listen silently and only ask questions when the adult is finished explaining.� At the end of recess, a raised hand from teacher works well too.� When students see your hand, they know it is the signal to stop talking and become silent before entering the building again.

Find the methods that work in your specific teaching situation and use them.� You will be rewarded for planning well.

Establish your General Playground Rules

Established playground rules that everyone understands eliminates a lot of arguing.� Some general rules at my school look like this:

• A person going outside of the boundary area is caught.
• When there is a tie (for example, when playing kickball) the benefit goes to the runner.
• When in doubt whether a child is �caught� or not, the child should ask the itter. The itter has the final word.� The guideline �You are caught if you felt the person tag you� does not work well for me.� Some children never feel tagged.� Instead, if they are uncertain, they discuss the matter with the person who tagged them.

Teach Conflict/Resolution Skills

Petty arguments do come up on the playground.� Running to the teacher for resolution to an argument is an easy way out.� First, it puts unnecessary pressure on the teacher/recess monitor because now you need to decide the best course of action.

Instead, teach your students to work out their conflicts by talking to each other.� At first, you will need to model how to speak with each other.�� With practice, though, students should be able to resolve conflicts on their own.� When my students solve their problems without involving me at all, I feel grateful.

In the event that my students come running to me, hoping I will side with them, I attempt to stay general, not taking either side, and ask questions like, �What is our rule for going outside boundaries?� or �What do you think is a good choice to make right now? or �You two sit aside here and come up with a plan for how to handle this.�� Your first graders are capable of resolving conflicts, plus they are learning a great life skill.� Beware of the poor sport, the one who is never wrong, or the student who never gives in.� A separate conversation with those individuals may be required.

May your school year be blessed with many happy hours of joyful play!� Recess, here we come!

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Resources for Schooling at Home

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: �Water, water. We die of thirst.� The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: �Cast down your bucket where you are.� A second time, the signal, �Water, send us water!� went up from the distressed vessel. And was answered: �Cast down your bucket where you are.� A third and fourth signal for water was answered: �Cast down your bucket where you are.� The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. From Booker T. Washington�s "Atlanta Compromise Speech," 1895.

The lost ship with its thirsty crew had unknowingly entered the fresh waters of the mouth of the Amazon. Ironically, the crew dying of thirst was floating in the very resource it needed for survival. Sometimes we simply need to open our eyes to perceive that our necessary resources are at hand�at our fingertips.

When it was time for Moses to transition from being a shepherd to becoming a leader of the Israelites, his rod was repurposed from a shepherd�s crook to a leader�s staff. The shepherd�s staff became the rod of God.

In the struggle to transition from schooling at school to schooling at home, we do well to remember these stories. We are surrounded with multiple resources and are using multiple tools. But we need eyes to perceive which of our multiple possessions are also resources. And we may need to repurpose some familiar tools for new applications.

School teachers consider many factors in planning their work. Among them are�

1. The purpose of our endeavor�what understandings, skills, habits, and �fruit� we wish to cultivate�
2. The pupil�his age, background, previous learning, skill level, attitudes, interests, motivation�
3. The subjects�their significance and meaning, content, scope, how they may �fit� the pupil�
4. The teaching/learning setting�classroom, classmates, resources on hand, time available�
5. The methodologies�how we go about teaching: what we do, what pupils do, types of activities, how materials are used, how we evaluate/grade�

These five steps apply to both schooling at school and schooling at home. The first three are similar for both settings. However, d and e differ greatly from the school to the home setting, and require radical adjustments in teacher planning.

For the setting (d), teachers must vicariously �enter into� the atmosphere of each individual home setting, putting themselves into each pupil�s home, shoes, and skin, feeling with him/her, and looking at the whole learning endeavor through their pupil�s eyes and heart. They must consider each home�s available resources and tools; its strengths and limitations. What was once considered �individualized instruction� to meet specific pupil needs must include �individualized plans� for specific homes. For example, plans for a single second grade pupil who is the oldest in the family, whose dad works away from home, and whose mother is busy with three pre-schoolers will differ from those for a second grade pupil who is the youngest in the family, has three older siblings also working in the schooling at home program, has a dad working at home, and a mother with more time available to help.

Teachers must plan an approach and activities (e) for learning that can �live� in the home environment. They must indeed have faith that the �dry bones� (materials, directions, and activities) they deliver to the home can �live� and thrive (Eze. 37:2-3), given the setting, attitudes, abilities, and resources of the family.

To frustrate is to set something before the child (and/or his parents) that is unattainable. To be frustrated is to be set in a maze with no outlet, to be asked to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, to make bricks without straw. To do something that you cannot do, no matter how good your intentions or how hard you try. Frustrating approaches to learning are offenses that can provoke antipathy in the pupil toward what may have otherwise become his favorite subject. And frustrations can at the same time elicit despair in parents with the whole project. Probably the quickest way to unwittingly sabotage any schooling at home endeavor is to build frustrations into its warp and woof.

Frustrations take many forms. A few include�

1. 1. Overload. Expecting too much of even a good thing. It�s hard to survive under a waterfall of even the best water. Another overload would be introducing too much variety at once. While juggling three balls may be challenging, trying to juggle 12 frustrates. Even the skilled blacksmith avoids having too many irons in the fire. Great wisdom and discretion is needed in designing the appropriate load�small loads are not taken seriously; overloads crush.
   2. Incomprehension. Trying to identify the �main idea� of a paragraph when you have no idea whether the paragraph had any ideas of its own. Borrowing 1 from the ten�s place when you don�t see any 1�s there to borrow. Underlining the helping verbs when you need help to find the main verbs. Pupils (and parents) who do not understand what it is they are to do switch to a coping mode such as underlining random words or hoping to pass by guessing. They shift attention away from the subject to trying to survive. And in the process they develop an antipathy for the whole project.
   3. Age-inappropriate expectations. �When I was a child, I thought as a child.� So did you. It�s OK for children to think like children. That�s who they are. Understand how your pupil thinks, plan to engage his thinking on those terms, and build/progress onward and upward from there. See the document entitled Age Group Characteristics of Children for ideas to stimulate your thinking as you plan.

The paradox here is that being asked to tackle a challenge is one of the strongest motivators, with great potential for �I thought I could!� euphoria. But there�s a huge difference between �setting your face steadfastly toward� a hard-to-understand task that sheds new light on each succeeding step and being asked to do something if you can�t figure out what it is you are to do, how you are to do it, and what the correct result will look like.

In planning lessons for his pupils, the schooling at home teacher�s work becomes somewhat like that of a writer, who must think ahead to how his work will be received and interpreted. The writer is not present to help interpret his work to the reader. For schooling at home, the teacher must envision what materials his pupils will have available, empathize with the pupils� home setting and circumstances and patterns. Then he must imagine what kinds of profitable learning assignments and activities are realistic in that setting and communicate this in a way that inspires learning.

Re-purposed tools.

1. The format of the familiar Sunday school quarterly could be used as a model for study guides for a schooling at home program. Both a pupil�s edition and a �teacher�s� (actually a parent�s) edition (or supplement) could be produced for use�
1. As a study guide for an individual �trade� book that will be used for the month or quarter. The book might be a biography, story book, book of poems, history book, nature study book�or some other subject. The study guide format could provide necessary background/introductory material, supporting illustrations, anecdotes and questions for each lesson, and assignments and activities to do along with supplemental ones to choose from. The teacher/parent supplement could include a variety of ways for the parent to monitor the child�s progress, ideas for cross-age interaction, suggestions for ways to have the child share his learning with the family or others, and directions for quizzing/testing if applicable.
2. As a study guide to accompany a standard textbook, such as a math, history or science textbook. Each guide might deal with one or two units of the text. It would break the work down into manageable daily/weekly chunks and provide suggestions for how to master challenging concepts such as making cut-out fractions to understand equivalent denominators. It would particularly focus on ways for the pupil to maximize learning in the home setting by drawing upon home resources.
   • Material resources from the home workshop, garden, kitchen, playroom, neighborhood, flower bed.
   • People resources such as siblings, extended family, grandparents, and neighbors.

   It would anticipate projects that extend the learning and may actually fit the home better than the school, such as developing a flower bed, small raised bed gardening, keeping an animal, or feeding and identifying birds.

2. A voice recorder can be used in multiple ways.
1. Some learning material can be provided on audio files.
2. Pupils can listen to audio files for read-along.
3. Pupils can practice reciting, storytelling, or recording answers as an alternative to writing.
4. The telephone could be a tool for each teacher to connect with each pupil on a set schedule�to answer questions, listen to verbal assignments, give directions/instructions, and encourage.

Activity Resources

1. Routines
   Life is very daily. It�s made up of routines. It�s the routines we celebrate as we look back over life. �Do you remember how we always did this�?� Families already have routines�or at least they should! When something is honored by being put on the daily routine, it gains significance. Typical home routines for children include getting up and bedtime routines, self-care/toiletry routines, mealtime routines, chore routines, and family activity routines.
   

   Some routines come and go with the seasons. The power of routines can be harnessed by attaching them to schooling at home work. When the schooling season approaches, the daily routines adjust accordingly. Now the routines include structured book studies, disciplined learning activities, memory work, and focused projects that find their place on the already-existing schedule of routines. The new routines are not a cancerous, malignant tumor unrelated to anything else that happens in the home. They are a necessary addition supplied and supported by thoughtful teachers who have found ways to plan learning that can be integrated into the home setting.

2. Storytelling, visiting, chatting
   

   One of the most powerful routines to expand and capitalize upon is the talking times surrounding daily routines such as mealtime conversations, dishwashing times, driving-down-the-road times, and end of the day winding down/devotion times. Without making these into �classes,� parents can stimulate meaningful conversations and discussions related to the ongoing topics their children are currently studying.

3. Playing games time
   

   Teachers can design certain learning activities into games that can be included in family game time, without completely usurping the place of traditional games. Some subjects lend themselves to game-type review or drill activities. Flash card use can be incorporated into games.

4. Family projects
   

   Projects can become intentional learning projects. Some may require extensive parental involvement; some minimal. Categories can include learning to make specific foods, preserving foods, flower beds and gardening, home maintenance or improvement, service. (See list in Preparing for Schooling at Home�).

Miscellaneous Resources

1. Some homes have extensive collections of books; others have few. Schools can provide plans for pupils to take advantage of available books in the individual home based on their availability.
2. Some homes make extensive use of electronic technology; others little. Plans can utilize available technology, from stand-alone activities such as electronic flashcards, audio files, and word processing to communication between teacher and home/pupils, to real-time instruction sessions if possible.
3. The number of older people available (siblings, relatives, friends) to interact with pupils can be a factor in what the individual pupil can be expected to accomplish.

Thanks to Lafaye for sharing these six sweet bulletin boards. Scroll down for inspiration, and click on an image to view at full resolution.

And the whole idea that the school board was willing to allow you to have plenty of time to plan. Think about that one with us a little bit.

Because as I watched you lead for 24 years, I've seen that there was a lot of pressures on you that you can't plan for: the unknowns and the things that come at you. It's very nice to have this time now to plan, and I've been very blessed by that.

I saw in you sitting down and saying, “Okay, how do we want to do fundraisers?” and spending several hours thinking through it. “And how are we going to do PTF's? How are we going to do…” Just every detail of the school, so that when you take over, it's not a, “Oh, whoops, I need to think that through.” It's already done. I commend you and praise the Lord for all the others who spoke into your life and helped train you to become a better man. I think the school will benefit from them.

What other aspects would you recommend that other school boards would repeat if they're looking at transition?

I just would like to hear more about the thought process that you had to do to get the board to think ahead as well.

It can be done!

Communication can make or break your school year. From the onset, you want to be intentional on communicating your expectations to your students and patrons as well as hearing their expectations, hopes, and dreams for the year. As your year progresses, you will build on the communication that you have established from the onset. If you have built a strong foundation of communication at the beginning of the school year, you will find it much less difficult to handle the behavior struggles, the academic challenges, and the unmet expectations that crop up at some point through each school term.

Near the beginning of August, you should send out a packet introducing yourself and your expectations for the year. Certainly, for any new student/family, this will be their first impression of you as a teacher. And for any students/families you have had previously, it will give them an idea of what will be the same/different about this school term with you.

Introduction of Yourself

• Contact information: your mailing address, email address, phone number
• Hobbies and interests
• Recent history
• Your parents and home church affiliation (so that they can play the Mennonite game and make some type of connection to you?)

I preferred introducing myself via a prayer-card-style so the parents could keep it on their fridge and remember me in prayer throughout the year.

Beginning of the Year Letter

My letter was formatted in the style of the weekly communication letters that I sent home throughout the school term. Ideas of what you could include in your beginning of the year letter:

• A list of recommended student supplies
• A list of supplies that the school provides for each student
• A list of what not to send along with your child (novelty erasers, pencil sharpeners, huge packs of crayons, etc.)
• Goals for the year (changes that you plan to make to the curriculum, an area of study that you wanted to focus on with the students based on the achievement test results of the previous year, ways you plan to grow as a teacher, etc.)
• The behavior management system (classroom expectations, 3-5 classroom rules, reward system, consequence system, and how I planned to communicate the student’s behavior to the parents)
• The microwave schedule (who gets to use the microwave first on which day of the week)
• An invitation to the parents to contribute to the classroom (recess volunteers? read one of their favorite stories to the children over story hour? do a craft or celebrate a holiday with the students? provide transportation? help supervise an extra-curricular activity? introduce the students to a parent’s hobby or talent?

Student/ Parent Survey

You have introduced yourself to them, so now is the time where you allow them to introduce themselves to you. I asked them to return the survey to me on the first day of school, and then I compiled the student section with the individual photo that I took of each student on the first day of school. Your students are wearing their best outfits and prettiest hair styles on the first day of school – that is the day you want to be snapping their photo! ? Each of the student’s picture and survey was put into a class binder and handed to visitors as they entered the classroom. Now visiting parents and grandparents no longer have to interrupt your teaching to question whether or not that child is so-and-so’s or if that girl with the brown braids and blue eyes is a sister to their third grader’s classmate.

The parent section of the survey is cut off and stored in the individual student’s file inside my filing drawer of my desk.

The beginning of the school year is one of the most exciting times of a teacher’s career. We often spend a lot of time preparing our classroom, arranging desks or tables, decorating and designing bulletin boards, tweaking our curriculum, and thinking through procedures. This year, I am encouraging you to be intentional on how and what you communicate to your students and patrons in order to establish a foundation of communication that is easy to maintain in the upcoming months.