Back to School Tips for the Preschool Teacher

Experienced preschool teachers know that starting the first few weeks with establishing routines and expectations is essential and will make the rest of the school year easier. I hope some of these preschool teacher back-to-school tips will help make your year a success! 

Setting Up Routines and Expectations

Here are a few things to think about before the first day of school:

• How are you going to talk to your students about sitting for circle and storytime?
• How do you expect the kids to line up to go outside or go home?
• What do you need to tell them about using the restroom and how to wash their hands? 
• Lunch and snack time expectations.
• How do they use the materials in the classroom with respect?
• How do they clean up their workspace and put things away properly?

Break these skills down and when possible demonstrate the behavior.  Remember the kids are always watching you, so if you do not want them eating or drinking during classtime or sitting on the tables, then model this behavior. 

Circle and Storytime

When establishing your circle and story time routines the first week of school, keep them simple.  Choose engaging familiar songs to sing, poems to recite, and books to read.   

Using Basic School Supplies

Teach your students how to use all of the basic school supplies.  On the first day of school, I will demonstrate how to use and take care of markers and glue sticks.  Show the kids how to hold the markers and how to place the tops on the markers so they hear the click.  When demonstrating glue sticks, for instance, I show them how high to turn the glue so they do not have a big gluing mess and how to turn it down before putting the tops on. Have a simple project ready that they can do as a group.

Scissors

I like to introduce scissors during the first week of school.  The kids love them and the sooner we learn basic scissor skills the more fun activities I can introduce. The first thing we discuss is scissor safety and how we carry scissors if we are walking.  I show them how to hold the scissors, fingers in the big hole and thumb in the small hole, thumb on top, and elbow in. I then demonstrate how to snip paper.  Have thin strips of colored construction or card stock paper ready for them to practice. Remember when prepping this activity we want the kids to be successful, so make the paper strips thin so they can cut them with one snip. Keep envelopes on hand in case the kids want to take their scraps home.

Paint

I like to have paint available at the easel in the classroom every day. Set up two paint colors at the easel and show the kids how to hold the paintbrush, how to make the brush strokes, and how to keep the paintbrushes in their correct containers.  In addition, I tell the kids they can mix their colors on their paper but not in the paint containers.  We want to keep the colors nice for the next child who wants to paint.  First-week tip, have labels with the kids’ names ready so you are not busy writing names on their artwork or worse thinking you will remember who painted what. Trust me this is a very unreliable method!

A few other lessons I will introduce to the kids are how to use glue bottles, watercolor palettes, playdough, and how to take care of our books.

Learn from my mistake!

I remember my first year of teaching, my director wanted a big fancy art project for the first day of school, basically to show the parents, and being a new teacher I fell into this trap.  What a disaster, the kids had no idea how to use the materials presented to them. It was a big lesson learned, but since then I have started each year with these routines.  The first few weeks are tiring but remember you are setting them and yourself up for a successful school year.

A few more fun things:)

Take lots of photos on the first day of school! Try these first-day-of-school photo props!

Click here for one of my favorite teacher tips!

Prepping for back-to-school activities? Try this fun apple name project.