Back to School Tips for Teachers: How to Prepare Before the First Day

These back to school tips for teachers come from years of first days — the ones that felt seamless and the ones that didn’t. The difference almost always came down to what I did (or didn’t do) in the weeks before students walked in.

Getting ready for a new school year doesn’t have to mean staying at school until 8 PM the week before it starts. With a little planning in three key areas — materials prep, classroom setup, and organization — you can walk into that first day feeling ready instead of just surviving it.

1. Prepare What You Can Ahead of Time

If you are fortunate to know your class roster in advance and are confident that those students will show up on the first day, labeling student materials can help you get ahead. Name tags, notebooks, folders, and pencils can be personalized. These can all be set aside, ready to go when the students arrive.

Although I do know my students’ names, I label them very little until the first week of school for a couple of reasons.  One, there are always a couple of students who don’t show up or who have last-minute class changes.  

Two, I like labeling everything with students on the initial day in the classroom.  Repeating student names over and over again helps me learn their names and faces.

Even if you’re not exactly sure which or how many students you will be teaching next year, you can begin to gather the materials you would like each student to have for the upcoming year.

Each school district is different, so depending on how your district handles student materials, you may not even need to be concerned too much about the basic supplies. Anything else you might want for the students could be added as an extra touch to start off the new school year!  I’m OCD and like everything to match.  

I’m always out shopping for back-to-school deals on pencil boxes and composition books.

What to Prep Before Students Arrive

Every year before school starts, I make photocopies of parent letters, assemble interactive journals, and fill pencil boxes. Whatever you can prep in advance makes that first week noticeably smoother. I hold off on labeling most things until the first week because there are always last-minute roster changes — and labeling alongside students the first day helps me learn names faster.

2. Decide on Classroom Set Up

I have used some fun and creative bulletin boards in the past, yet each year I always come across a new one I would like to try. To help get ready for back to school, decide which displays or bulletin boards you would like to incorporate into your classroom this year.

Some bulletin boards are useful year after year, but sometimes it is necessary to change things up a little bit. Make these decisions in advance so you’re not stuck contemplating what you want to do during the first few days back in the building.

Before I touch a single staple gun, I sketch the bulletin board on paper — the same way I plan anchor charts. It takes five minutes and prevents the frustrating process of having to pull everything down and start over. Once I have the sketch, I can gather materials in advance instead of improvising at 6 AM on a Tuesday.

Designating certain areas for the classroom has always been helpful for classroom flow and classroom management. Before each new school year begins, I like to have a place in mind for small-group work areas, reading areas, center work areas, or even the classroom library.

It has been helpful to reflect on what has worked in the past. Then, decide whether to keep that area, move it, or create a new space for certain learning activities.

Have you ever thought about having students help you design your classroom?  Do they have input on what areas they would find most useful and engaging?  

One thing I do every year that teachers always ask about is letting students help design the classroom layout. During our Location and Maps unit, students create a grid map of the classroom — but I use that same activity to get their input on where things should go. They notice things I don’t, and having a say in the space makes them more invested in caring for it. I still get final approval, but their ideas have genuinely changed my setup more than once.

3. Get Organized

Did you leave any outdated materials, paperwork, or lesson plans on your desk over summer break? What about your classroom closet? If you’re like me, you might hang on to some materials “just in case” you might need them.

Take some time to decide whether these materials will be helpful to you this year.  I tend to do this at the end of the year, but there are always a few things I throw out at the beginning of the year.

From what I’ve learned in the past, I tend to rework or modify many different materials each year. Keep what you think is necessary, and take some time to recycle, donate, or simply get rid of things you do not expect to use in the future.

Don’t forget about your digital items, too! Is your computer desktop cluttered? What about your work email or a USB drive? Do you have files everywhere? Take some time to get organized.

Organize materials into easily accessible folders, freshen up your classroom newsletter and class website, or create new logs for this upcoming year. These are quick changes you can make before the new school year to give yourself more time at the official start of the school year.

When school is officially back in session, every teacher knows how long the to-do list grows. Carving out a little bit of time each week can really help save your sanity during the first few weeks of school.

These teacher tips might not seem world-changing now, but when you are back into the swing of things with beginning-of-the-year meetings, introductions, professional development, and back-to-school nights, you will be glad you gave yourself a little bit of a head start.

None of these changes takes more than a few hours spread across the summer. But when you’re back in the building with a stack of beginning-of-year meetings, back-to-school night prep, and 25 students looking at you on day one, having done even a few of these will make a real difference. Start with whatever feels most manageable and build from there.