📅 It’s about to get REAL
I’ll be honest. I tried to stay as far away from my classroom and from school as I could throughout the summer.
But this weekend? I was in my classroom. Rearranging desks. Thinking about the first day of class.
My summer has disappeared like a vapor. I’ll bet (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) that it’s the same for you — or it’s starting to get too close for comfort.
Starting today, we’re back to two newsletters a week — on Mondays and Thursdays, like usual.
A quick (very grainy) screnshot of a video I shot from my classroom this weekend.
Lots of the teachers I admire the most talk about the importance and value of the first weeks of school — for relationships, for routine, for expectations. (I’m a firm believer, too.)
You might be thinking about textbooks or tests or extra curricular activities, any number of things. But lots of teachers I know have one main focus …
“How do I start this off on the right foot?”
In today’s 💡 Big Idea, we’ll start the conversation about FOUR big things lots of us are thinking about at the beginning of the school year — seats, rules, relationships, and family connections.
I’ll share some things I’m thinking about … but you’ll get a chance to share YOUR best tips in our Back to School channel in the DTT online community.
Feel free to jump over to these topics right now …
Inside:
👥 Join the DTT online community. (It’s free!)
👀 DTT Digest: 4 resources worth checking out
👥 Community: Curiosity, screens, AI, and more
🎯 Quick Teaching Strategy: Grab our Ultimate Back-to-School Guide
💡 The Big Idea: 4 keys to starting the school year strong
😄 Smile of the day: Living dangerously
👋 How we can help
👥 Join the DTT online community. (It’s free!)
We’re ALWAYS discussing something in the free DTT online community!
If you love seeing what other educators are doing in their schools — and thinking about, then you’ll love the FREE DTT online community.
It’s our teacher gathering place where we share what works, borrow what others are doing, and talk about the topics that matter.
Access it in a laptop/computer browser (at http://ditch.circle.so) or in the mobile app (for Apple/iPhone or Google/Android).
Find new teaching ideas. Ask a question. Get connected with a passionate community of educators from around the world.
Did I mention it’s all FREE??
👀 DTT Digest
4 teaching resources worth checking out today
📺 Outsmart AI to Spot Misinformation and Evaluate Sources— Learn how professional fact-checkers and journalists avoid falling for misinformation, whether it’s human- or AI-generated in this free webinar from KQED Teach.
↔️ Play Back-to-School Connections — Use this simple game where players have to find four groups of four items that share something in common as a warm up or ice breaker. You can even make your own!
🧠 12 brain breaks to energize your classroom — Getting back into a full day of class can be tough for students and teachers. Use these brain breaks to give everyone a quick energizer throughout the day.
ICYMI 🤿 World Snorkl Day Replay! — Did you miss World Snorkl Day? That’s ok! You can catch all of the World Snorkl Day sessions, including mine, on the YouTube replay.
👥 FROM THE COMMUNITY 👥
Curiosity, screens, AI, and more
Our online community has been busy over the summer! Here are some conversations that are picking up steam.
Remember: You can always hop into the #TeacherLife channel in the community and start a post like these!
AI use in education (Michael Harvey)
5 things we need to fix about screens in schools (Matt Miller)
What we are NOT teaching (Rania Jabr)
You can join the free DTT Community to read ideas like this, connect with other educators, discuss, and share ideas of your own.
🎯 QUICK TEACHING STRATEGY 🎯
🎒 Grab our Ultimate Back-to-School Guide
Have you seen our new Ultimate Back-to-School Guide? It’s packed full of …
ways to build community
screen-free ideas
games and icebreakers
purposeful technology
tools for your teacher toolbox
Each section has four pages, complete with practical ideas, downloadable templates, links with additional info, and more.
💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡
🗝️ 4 keys to starting the school year strong
There are LOTS of ways to hit the ground running to start school.
Raise your hand if you’ve read Harry Wong’s The First Days of School.
It was published in 1991. For a while, it seemed like the required gift to give someone graduating with a teaching degree.
Reglardless of your feelings about it, it seems like there are as many ways to kick of the school year as there are teachers in those classrooms.
Rules and regulations. Culture building. Relationships. Play D’oh. Icebreakers. Getting down to business.
I’ve been in education for 23 years now — and I’ve been a teacher on 13 first days back to school. I have my go-to activities, but I’m still trying to figure parts of it out.
During the first week, we’ll do student interest surveys so I can get to know the students better. I use the data from that survey throughout the rest of the year. Read more here.
For several years, I would start the first day with my beginning Spanish students (Spanish 1) by speaking only in Spanish — but it’s understandable, especially with key words on the board. I wanted to show them that the language wasn’t an unsolvable mystery.
I’ve played back to school bingo. Use a bingo card and put things about fellow students on it — someone who traveled, someone who visited family, someone who likes taking naps, etc. I try to be as inclusive as possible — especially for kids who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do much over the summer.
In today’s 💡 Big Idea, we’ll dig into some back-to-school tips from our DTT online community — and we’ll start dicussions on some big back-to-school topics.
First day of school tips
Thanks to Don Sturm, a relentless sharer in our DTT online community, we’ve been discussing this for the last two weeks!
His simple prompt: How do you all handle the first day with students?
Here’s what the community had to say …
BUILDING WITH LEGO — I started every year (and almost every day in the last few years) building something with LEGO bricks. On the first day, I would give them a challenge. Something like design and construct a wind turbine with card stock and craft sticks. Or give them 10 index cards and a 6 inches of masking tape to build a structure to support 50 pounds. This told me more about them than any “what did you do last summer” project. — Daniel Thomas
ENTHUSIASM — I start my first day with enthusiasm and buy in. I teach middle school history, and I found this great resource called “Why Study History?”. It includes a lot of critical thinking and discussion. — Tessa Wales
EXPECTATIONS — Procedures and expectations, which I feel are VERY important on that first day and/or week are not limiting, but rather setting yourself up for a year where the classroom can thrive and actually get “stuff” done. — Tiffany Mateske
FYI: Tiffany’s comment about procedures and expectations started a great back-and-forth about when and how to set expectations.
A LETTER ABOUT ME — First day major activity is letter writing (in our own handwriting). I present a letter about me and ask questions about them and get their responses - which tells me a lot about them. — Helena Stevens
WORLD MAP COMPETITION — For my seniors - AP Human Geography - I collect all of their summer work - then we get into two teams in the hall or the library - and they compete to assemble I giant map of the world. — Kristin Turner
SNOWBALL ICEBREAKER — When I was in the classroom, the first day of my high school courses was focused on ice breakers and reviewing the syllabus. The game I played was called “Snowball.” The students had to write a fact they wanted to share with the class, and then crumple up the paper. The “snowballs” were thrown around the room. I read the first fact, and the person who owned it had to read the next fact until we went around the room. It was a great way to learn about each classmate and not put pressure on reading out one’s own information. Reading about someone else helped reduce nerves. — Mia Gutsell
Share your back to school tips in the community
Check our the posts in our Back to School channel in the online community. Share what works for you — and see what others are sharing.
(PS: If you were wondering, these were the 4 ways mentioned in the headline above.) 😉
Feel free to hit reply and respond to one of the posts — or just hit “new post” and tell us what you do!
😄 Smile of the day
To the teachers who roll into school right before it starts …
👋 How we can help
There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:
Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.
Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.
Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!
