Imagine the end of another successful school year, and you are packing up your classroom for the summer. You are ready to get to the beach, have your toes in the sand, and BOOM, your admin informs you that you are changing grade levels. Instant STRESS! If you’re anything like me, all you can think about at that moment is how well you know the current curriculum, how many resources you have for your current grade level, and how all you wanted to do was spend your summer break relaxing, knowing you were already prepared for the next school year. If this is you, don’t worry because I have three don’ts on what to do when starting a new grade level!
- Don’t immediately spend all your hard-earned money purchasing resources for that grade level!
Listen, I have been there with you! You want to ensure you understand the standards, know the content, and are prepared to take on the new challenge, but this spending your hard-earned coins should not be your first task for summer. There are so many free resources online to help you begin understanding the different standards and skills you will be teaching in the next year. You can reach out to your school to see if there are any resources they can give you to glance over during the summer to familiarize you with the content. This is a beautiful FREE way to receive some materials for your new grade level without spending your own money. Another reason to wait to purchase items is you don’t know what your new team will have and are willing to share. Since I am not only moving grade levels but districts, I don’t know anyone in my new school. That said, I don’t know what I don’t know. I should wait to meet my new team to see their resources and materials and what they’re willing to share before I purchase copies of similar items myself.
- Don’t stress out!
Okay, I get it. It is much easier said than done when stressing out about a grade level change, but that stress will not help you in the long run. Instead of thinking about how your new grade level will be a challenge, consider all the positive relationships you will build the following year with your students. You have to retrain your brain to think positively when change happens. I taught 4th grade for seven years before changing to 5th grade this year. Since I had only known 4th grade, it was hard to accept that they asked me to move to 5th grade over the summer (even though My new school hired me for 4th grade with my new school). Although it was a turn of events for me this summer, I now see it as an opportunity to grow as an educator. Moving grade levels allows me to expand my teaching resume, and I will be able to bring my background knowledge of 4th grade into my 5th-grade classroom. Now I understand some of you will be making drastic changes like upper elementary school to lower elementary or lower elementary school to upper elementary school. Still, regardless of your transition, I believe you can bring your past experiences into your new classroom, and you may be able to teach your new team some things from your previous grade level as well.
- Spend all your time and energy focusing on decorative items for your new classroom
Look, I love a fun Pinterest board classroom, but if we are being honest with ourselves, having a pretty classroom doesn’t always mean the content is being taught. Now I am not knocking cute classrooms with fun themes and aesthetics, but I am hitting it if you’re focused more on the look of your classroom rather than the rules, procedures, and content being taught. I understand that if you spend all day in a room, you might as well make it beautiful! But if your walls are covered in cute posters, quotes, and decorations that are not content-driven, you’re not preparing for the new school year. Instead, take some time to learn the standards and focus on the type of content-based posters, anchor charts, and materials you want to put around the room that will be helpful for your students. It is vital to ensure you have rich content posted for visual aids for your students, so take some time to learn what would be best for you to post in yours, rather than spending all your time focused on decorative items.
I hope these three points helped you as much as they helped me! Check out my three do’s of starting a new grade level next!
P.S. If you’re starting a new math position in elementary and are worried about your students’ math gaps, check out my four bridge-the-gap math notebooks! I have four journals that bridge the same skill from 1st to 5th grade. Click the links below to access the resources in my TPT store.
