For the last ten years, I’ve dreamed of teaching preschool. I graduated from college, had kids, and started my own preschool and daycare. I never seriously considered teaching a new grade.

But God had different plans for me and my family. Out of the blue, I was presented with the opportunity to teach in the Christian school from which I graduated.

This would be an awesome opportunity since my kids are now school age. The reality of running a daycare is that it doesn’t leave a mom a lot of time to be Mom.

There was just one catch: I’d be teaching third grade – not preschool.

Keep reading to see how I managed the new grade transition and why all my coworkers keep commenting how quickly my room came together!

How to be Fearless and Absolutely Conquer Your New Teaching Job

Gameplan

This is what I walked into with less than 2 weeks to put my classroom together for orientation. Then I only had another week to prepare for the first week of school. All while finishing out my 2 weeks at my other job. Eek!

So, I was completely excited and completely pressed for time. Here’s what I did at home that helped me put everything together with only a few hours in the classroom.

Of course, the first place to start is Pinterest! Get some visual inspiration on what you want your classroom to look like. Here’s all of my boards related to assembling your classroom.

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/bulletin-boards/”]

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/classroom-decor/”]

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/classroom-management/”]

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/word-walls/”]

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/elementary-classrooms/”]

[pin_board url=”https://www.pinterest.com/slondon11/classroom-organization/”]

Take Photos

I stopped by just to take a digital inventory of the furniture in my classroom. That way, I could go home and plan out my layout and design without having to hang out at the (hot) school with my kids all evening.

Take photos of all your furniture, boards, and walls so that you can see what you have to work with even if you’re not in the room.

Use paper or an online floorpan designer like this one from Scholastic to get a general plan for the layout of your room.

Move Furniture

I did all of that preparation at home, which made it so quick to arrange my room when I did get a chance to go to the school. Here’s what my room looked like after just a few hours of work.

Decor

You may realize by now that I have created a lot of resources to share with other teachers. But the problem with my grade transition was that I was hired very last minute and didn’t have time to create anything for my new grade level.

The only way I could pull this transition off so quickly was with the help of other teacher sellers! The other teachers and administrators were amazed at how fast I was able to put together a room that looked great and ready to go for the school year.

The great thing about downloading from TeachersPayTeachers.com or from a fellow teacher’s blog like mine is that these resources are created by other teachers. They get it! They’ve been there! They know how pressed for time you are and that you just want to print something out and put a checkmark on your list.

Here’s the specific resources I used to help me personalize and put together my classroom decor ASAP. Some I purchased and some were free!

I also splurged and bought a Cricut for making bulletin board letters and everything else I can think of!

Let’s Talk Lesson Planning

Plan only a couple weeks at a time. I think this allows for me to better follow the kids’ needs, and also adapt to things like assemblies that I’m unaware of as I’m new to this school.

And after completing our report cards for the first nine weeks, I can really see a pattern where my kids are struggling. So, I created the new few weeks of plans to spend more time in these areas.

I use the Editable Teacher Binder from One Stop Teacher Shop and I can’t recommend it enough! I love that it’s both fun and practical, and that I can customize it when I need to.

Prepare your materials. At first, you may only have enough time and energy to organize one week at at time. But I definitely recommend pulling out your supplies for the week ahead of time so that you aren’t scrambling during class time. If you’ve taught before, I’m sure you already know how much the kids will take advantage of this time to get off task.

Study the curriculum. Again, you probably won’t be able to memorize the content you’ll be covering all year in the first few weeks of school. That’s okay. Take it one week at a time.

The first few weeks, I used my lunch break to look over the lessons for the afternoon since I wasn’t familiar with the curriculum like the other teachers. But taking a look at the curriculum without students vying for your attention will allow you to teach without having to refer to your books and giving the students time to get off track.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It

It’s ok to not be the best teacher in your school your first year. Everyone has a starting point, and you will grow as you gain experience. Do your best, of course. But if you’re like me, it’s easy to overdo it trying to be perfect, and end up with burnout.

Here’s my tips for starting a new teaching job:

Take a mental inventory of your classroom and resources. My room was so disorganized. I literally went through everything and put it away somewhere else. This gave me a great idea of what I have to utilize when I create my lesson plans.
Start with the bare minimum: direct instruction, independent work, reviews, and build up from there once you and your class get into a routine. Don’t try to do every extra supplemental activity and project until you are confident and caught up on everything else. You’ll burn yourself out!
Set rules and stick to them. I have a lot of shouting out, because I wasn’t firm about my rules in the beginning. I thought we might be able to work more like a round table discussion since it’s a small group. I was WRONG. Set rules for when they can and can’t talk or leave their seat and be consistent with them. I love the Whole Brain Teaching Rules and there’s lots of copies you can get for free on TeachersPayTeachers.
It’s okay to learn as you go. You’re not going to do everything the same way another teacher has. Do what works for you and tweak it as you go. Bring the skills you’ve learned teaching other grades and try out new techniques.
Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for advice from experienced teachers. They, too, have been a new teacher and will probably be eager to help you. I have had awesome support from the other teachers I work with! They have been more than willing to show me their ways they handle behavior and record keeping in their classrooms.

Follow Your Instincts

Some of our favorite games, activities, and “ah-ha!” moments have come when I’ve improvised. There will be days you can see that your class is having trouble focusing or the lesson just isn’t clicking. So take a minute and think about a way to make the lesson more engaging. That might mean you’ll have more reading to do tomorrow, but that’s okay.

Here’s an example. Last week, we were learning about the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the Constitution. We had read the text before Christmas break (when focus is low anyway,) and when I tried to review, it was obvious nothing had clicked. The kids were over it.

So, I wrote “Declaration of Independence” on the board and explained that the Americans had “declared they were independent” from England. I asked what it would look like if the students were independent from me. That got them thinking!

Next, I asked them to create a plan (constitution) for how to accomplish two goals: keep everyone safe, and learn everything in the textbooks by the end of the year.

And you know what they did? They fought and argued for half and hour and wrote down nothing! But they did agree on how to elect a student to be in charge, and they were able to mentally separate the ideas of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

And the best part was every time they asked me for help I just said, “You have declared your independence from me!” So, sometimes “winging it” can accomplish more than what’s actually on your lesson plan.

New Grade? No Problem!

So if you’re nervous about starting a new teaching job, try not to be. Don’t be afraid to reach out to coworkers, scour teacherspayteachers.com for free or paid resources to get your room ready and get you organized in a snap, and fake it till you make it! You can do this!

If you have any tips to add, please comment below. We’re all in this together!

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