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Back to School Checklists for Teachers Template

Schools and Education

Use this when prepping for a new school year.

Organization

Organization

  • Clearly label all shelves, cubbies, and activity areas
  • Organize the classroom library. This can be done alphabetically, by genre, or both (refrain from organizing by reading level)
  • Prepare systems for storing and collecting homework and other paperwork
  • Determine desk arrangement and preliminary seating chart
  • Organize all curriculum materials based on when you will need them
  • Draft student work groups based on testing data and anecdotal notes from previous teachers
  • Set up learning centers with supplies in place

Supplies

Supplies

  • Order class supplies such as colored pencils, glue sticks, math manipulative, and so on
  • Gather tissues, band-aids, cleaning supplies, and other daily essentials
  • Purchase materials to keep yourself organized such as a planner, calendar, and lesson plan organizer
  • Prepare a folder for information from faculty meetings and professional development
  • Familiarize yourself with classroom technology and consult with other staff about how to solve problems students might encounter

Routines

Routines

  • Develop a system of rules and procedures and post these somewhere in the classroom. From this, create a classroom agreement for students and families to sign.
  • Decide if you would like your students to help create rules. If so, determine how you will work together to come up with the rules
  • Create a homework system for how often you will send homework, what type of homework you will give, and what will happen if a student doesn't complete it
  • Decide how you will structure each week based on your specials schedule and lunch/recess times.
  • Create a set of classroom jobs. Decide how these will be rotated

Emergencies

Emergencies

  • Post emergency evacuation procedures and familiarize yourself with all emergency exits
  • Stock and place your class first aid kit where it is easily accessible incase of emergencies
  • Plan ahead for last-minute changes by developing a substitute folder
  • Print emergency contact forms

Communication with Families

Communication withe Families

  • Send a welcome letter to families
  • Create name tags for students, desks, and other organizational charts (i.e. a lunch tag system)
  • Create the first newsletter to send home, if you plan to write weekly newsletters
  • Set up a class webpage to keep announcements, deadlines, and learning goals all in one place. Update regularly as the year progresses
  • Prepare planning sheets to give to families before parent-teacher conferences with discussion points such as student academic strengths and areas for growth, personality traits, goals for the year, etc.
  • Develop a system of sending home individual progress reports for students. Some teachers do these weekly while others do them monthly. Keep families in the loop about academic goals, learning developments, and behavior

Student Materials

Student Materials

  • Create a list of individual student supplies such as folders, notebooks, and pencils that students will need to bring to class
  • Label take-home folders to send with students and fill them with any paperwork that needs to be returned
  • Create a list of classroom needs that each student needs to help provide (i.e, tissues, hand sanitizer, sharpies, etc.)

First Week

First Week

  • Decide how to welcome students and introduce them to the classroom
  • Choose icebreaker activities for the first day
  • Plan other activities and lessons for the first week of school, some academic and some to build your classroom culture
  • If you choose to take pictures of students, prepare a camera for doing this
  • Make copies of all curriculum materials and handouts as far in advance as possible

Decoration

Decoration

  • Decorate bulletin boards and hang useful anchor charts and posters
  • Decorate outside of your classroom (front door, hallway, etc.)
  • Set up a classroom calendar
  • Create a birthday chart