Teacher Approved Tips: Read to Your Class Before the First Day and End of Year Decluttering [episode 74]

Emily
Hey, there thanks for joining us today for teacher approved tips, a special series from the Teacher Approved podcast. Every Thursday, we’re bringing you a weekly bonus episode highlighting new and favorite teacher approved tips from us and other amazing educators.

Emily
Our first teacher approved tip is connect with your students before school starts with a recorded story. In Monday’s episode, we talked about the importance of affirming your students, and why that should be your number one goal in the first days of school.

Heidi
In case you haven’t listened to that episode yet, let’s get on the same page about what we mean when we say affirming. So to us affirming means making your students feel loved and welcomed as they begin to year together in your classroom. And that means recognizing their individuality and accepting each of them wholeheartedly.

Emily
Affirming is important because it builds connection, helps you make your classroom a safe space for everyone, improves student academic performance and boost engagement. Talk about a powerful tool. So this is why it’s our number one goal at back to school time.

Heidi
So go back and listen to Monday’s episode to hear some of our ideas for how you can plan to meet that goal of affirming with your back to school plans.

Heidi
But the great news is that you can start affirming your students before school even starts, as soon as you have a class list even. And one way to do that is by recording a story for them to watch or listen to before school starts. So Emily, why don’t you tell us more about that?

Emily
Well, here’s how you do it. First, decide what book you want to read. You really can’t go wrong with a classic like First Day Jitters or The Night Before whatever grade you teach. But there are a ton of amazing back to school books out there to choose from.

Heidi
I really love Schools First Day of School. Oh, it’s so cute. But we will put a link for you to a list of book ideas in the show notes.

Emily
Next record yourself reading. You could just record your voice reading it. But doing a video will be a much more powerful tool for connection with your students. I would either prop up your phone to record you or use the camera on your computer.

Heidi
Just be sure to hold up the book to show the pictures while you read just like you were reading to your students in your classroom.

Emily
Then decide the best way to get the video to your students. You can upload it to a Google Classroom or a Microsoft team site that you’ll be using this year. Or you can email it to your students, but it’s probably best to upload it somewhere first, rather than sending them a big file.

Emily
And then you can send them a link in the email. I would recommend uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo as an unlisted video.

Heidi
That way if it’s unlisted, your students will be able to see it because they have the link. But you’re not going to have any other like rando stumbling on it.

Emily
Plus, then you don’t have to worry about breaking any copyright laws. Not that I think that’s a very big concern to be clear. I’ve also seen it done where you use a free QR code maker to make a code that connects to your video. I will link a free site in the show notes for making QR codes.

Emily
You’ll put the QR code on a flyer and then you can give that to your students when you see them like at an open house or back to school night. Or you can send it to them in the mail maybe with a welcome letter.

Heidi
Now a QR code does take a few more steps to create but it would be so fun for the kids to scan that code.

Emily
I’m a full grown adult and I still get a little thrill of enjoyment when I scan a QR code.

Heidi
Like magic. The reason that making this video of you reading a story is so powerful is that it fast tracks your students comfort and connection with you. They get to see you in your classroom reading a book which helps them feel familiar with the space, but they also get to see you in your role as a teacher.

Heidi
This will give them a wonderful inside glimpse into the year ahead. Plus, watching the video potentially multiple times like kids often do will help your students feel like they already know you.

Emily
And one cool thing about this idea is that since it’s not personalized to each student or anything, you can potentially reuse the same video for multiple years, especially if you don’t change your look very much from year to year.

Heidi
That is definitely a win. So give this tip a try and record a story for your students to listen to before school starts. We would love to hear what book you choose over in the teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily
Our second teacher approved tip today comes from Kristen Donegan from Easy Teaching Tools. She’s got some great ideas for decluttering at the end of the year. Let’s take a listen.

Kristen
Hey there, I’m Kristen Donegan of Easy Teaching Tools former teacher of 13 years. And now I get to help busy teachers like you get organized so that you can make teaching more sustainable.

Kristen
Through my program, easy organization tools, and my new organized teacher club, I get to help 1000s of teachers every year create simple systems, routines and boundaries, so that they get to live a more effective and happier life without continuing to stay late and work on the weekends.

Kristen
I know that so many teachers have been in survival mode the last few years, and there’s a lot of things that are piling up in your classroom, right. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and ready to clear the clutter for good, I’ve got a few tips for you.

Kristen
The biggest reason for paper clutter or just clutter in general in your classroom, is simply not having a system or home for all of your stuff. And when we get busy, and life happens, and new students get added to our classrooms and there’s new demands, it’s really easy to start shoving things in drawers and in piles.

Kristen
And next thing you know, if you’re like me, you might feel like you’re suffocating in your own space, and you just can’t do your best work. So here’s what I’d love for you to do. The first thing I’d love for you to do is just do a brain dump of all of the areas in your classroom that have been neglected, that have had things piling up.

Kristen
So maybe it’s your small group area, or math rotations, or all of your centers or your teacher desk, whatever that may be, just get that all out on paper. And the reason why is so that you can get it out of your brain so that you don’t have to continue thinking about it, you can free up some space and try to enjoy your summer.

Kristen
Now, once you have all of those things listed, the second thing I want you to do is just highlight or circle, the top three areas that maybe are bothering you the most. They’re the areas where you walk into your classroom, and you take a deep breath, and you’re like, Oh, I know I need to get to that. But then you’ve got to grade right, or you’ve got a lesson plan, or you’ve got to get back to caregivers. And it keeps getting put off.

Kristen
But it’s an area that you know is going to have a big impact once you get it organized and clear of your clutter.

Kristen
The third thing I want you to do is to set a goal, it’s really easy to want to do these things. And then they get put off because things come up. So in your phone or in your plan book, what I would suggest is to pick a date, when you want to work on that area. It’s really, really important for me, if I don’t write it down, it’s not going to happen. And then that area just isn’t going to get decluttered.

Kristen
The fourth thing you get to do is when it’s that day where you’ve committed to clearing out that filing cabinet, for instance, what I need to do for myself because I’m easily distracted, is I like to set a timer, a visual timer, so I’m not looking at my phone, I’ve got my phone across the room, I’ve got my door shut, close the blinds, turn the lights off if you need to, so you don’t get distracted.

Kristen
And then just get to work. I like to give myself a timeframe. So maybe it’s 60 minutes to go through one of the drawers of my filing cabinet. And that’s all I’m doing. I’m doing nothing else.

Kristen
I find that when I’m really intentional with my time and I give myself a time limit, I get so much more done so that I’m able to minimize those distractions.

Kristen
Now the last part of clearing the clutter is really going through it. So in step five, you’re going to decide what you’re going to keep and what you are going to toss. As you’re going through your piles of things, what really helps me as I asked myself these questions: if it doesn’t impact student learning regularly, get rid of it.

Kristen
Because I know we’ve all been guilty of buying things in the Target dollar spot or things that we see other people using. Or maybe you happen to just be out and about. And you think this looks really, really cool for my classroom, I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. But I need it. Have you ever done that before? I used to do that all the time.

Kristen
The next thing that I’d like you to consider is, if you haven’t used it this year, get rid of it. Chances are, you don’t need 300 popsicle sticks, and all of those pipe cleaners and the target mini erasers and all the things. If you need it down the line, it will always be there.

Kristen
And the reason I say this is because in my first six years as a teacher, I moved classrooms every single year. And every time I’d moved, I was taking all of my clutter, all of my junk with me. So just right now, so you don’t have to do that, go ahead and go through your things.

Kristen
And if you’re thinking, Oh, I spent money on this, I don’t want to let it go. Or maybe there’s some sentimental value. I held on to my transparencies for so long. And I don’t even know if they use overhead projectors anymore. I’m sure you don’t have one in your classroom. And so when we hold on to things like that, it’s important to let it go. And so I did let it go.

Kristen
Now if you don’t want to just simply throw things out, you’ve got some options. I used to put things in my treasure box because I was that student who loves to dig through my teachers trash. For things to play school with at home.

Kristen
You can also send out a school email and say, hey, my door is open on this date, from this time to this time, have a picture of all of your things that you’re going to be getting rid of. And hopefully there’ll be some teachers who will come in, grab those things. And then you don’t need to feel bad for wasting money, or getting rid of something in case someone else can use it.

Kristen
And then if no one wants that stuff, toss it, I promise if you haven’t been using it, you really won’t miss it. And you will feel so much lighter and less anxious and more excited to walk into your classroom knowing that you can find things a little bit easier, and you don’t have that clutter weighing over you.

Kristen
Now that you’ve cleared your clutter, you’re going to want to have a way to be able to maintain that throughout the school year so things don’t pile up again, when you get busy and when you get overwhelmed.

Kristen
Join me for my free PD series happening in July, where I show first through fifth grade teachers how to consistently leave school prepared and on time without bringing work home so that teaching can be more sustainable for you and you can finally be present during precious family time at night and on the weekend.

Kristen
Register for this training that’s helped 1000s of first through fifth grade teachers get organized and avoid burnout. Plus, when you attend live, you’ll get a one hour PD certificate, and other organization bonuses. Thanks again for letting me be here to show you how you can finally declutter your classroom.

Emily
We love a list, so I love how Kristen broke down her decluttering process into the specific steps you should take to help get control of your classroom clutter one area at a time.

Heidi
And I really loved her recommendation to use a timer to keep you focused while you’re working on a space. It is just so easy for time to get away from you.

Emily
Mm hmm. Be sure to check out Kristen’s free training for first or fifth grade teachers who want to get organized and avoid burnout. You can sign up for her training at easyteachingtools.com/theorganizedteacher and we’ll link to it in the show notes as well.

Heidi
That’s it for today’s episode. Try recording a story to connect with your students before school even starts this year. And remember Kristen’s teacher approved tip to help you declutter your classroom.