First Year Teacher Tips to Succeed Your First Year

Congratulations on your new teaching job! Being a first year teacher is exciting, but can also be overwhelming at times. Here are 10 tips and tricks to help your first year teaching be successful and help you have a great year.

Congratulations on your new teaching job! Being a first year teacher is exciting, but can also be overwhelming at times. Here are 10 tips and tricks to help your first year teaching be successful and help you have a great year.

1. Before the first day of school, create a well thought out classroom management plan.

As a first year teacher, this is probably the most important thing you can do before your students arrive on the first day. Think through your classroom management plan and what routines and procedures you want students to practice those first few weeks of school. Stay consistent with your expectation and review the rules often. Think through:

  • What classroom rules will your class use?
  • What consequences will students have for not following the rules?
  • Will you set up a reward system?
  • How will students get your attention?
  • When can students use the bathroom, get a drink, sharpen pencils, etc?
  • How will you hold students accountable for incomplete work?
  • What will students do once they are finished with their assignment?
  • How will you communicate with families?

2. Build relationships with your students

Greet them at the door each morning and learn about them and their interests. This helps so much with setting up a positive classroom community.

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10 Tips to Land a Teaching Job

Whether you're looking for your first teaching job or you're veteran teacher, these tips to land your next teaching job will help you prepare and ace your next interview! #teaching #teacher #interview #tips #jobs

Searching for a job can be stressful and time-consuming. When I graduated college in winter of 2014, my plan was to substitute teach for the remainder of the school year in a few schools I was interested in teaching in. I happened to find a paraprofessional job at the end of February and worked as a parapro in a first grade classroom for the rest of the school year. In the summer I taught summer school at the same school district. I would love to say that helped me find a teaching job right away, but it didn’t. What it did do was give me experiences in different grade levels that helped me figure out what grade I wanted to teach, and were experiences that looked good on a resume. When I graduated,  there were hundreds of applicants for each teaching job that was posted in my area. Thankfully things have relaxed since then, but it took me a few years to get into a school district I could see myself in for the long-haul.  These are the tips I have learned through my experience looking for a teaching job over the years.

1. Look for jobs daily

Take a few minutes each day to check on the new job listings. In my experience, when a school knows that a teacher is leaving or retiring, they start posting the jobs as early as spring. Apply to the job early. Just because a posting is set to close at a certain date doesn’t mean that principals aren’t looking at applications and setting up interviews prior to then.

2. Go to job fairs

This is a great way to meet many people at once and there is a good chance that there will be principals and others that make hiring decisions there. Be sure to bring multiple copies of your resume that you can pass out to individuals you meet.

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10 Breastfeeding Tips for Working Moms

Hello!
Breastfeeding is tough! Breastfeeding and being a working mom comes with a new set of challenges. I am not an expert, but I am just speaking from personal experience and what worked well for me. These are my best breastfeeding tips for working moms.  From the beginning, I struggled with my supply and ended up having to supplement with formula for the first couple of months. I worked really hard to build my supply by pumping the one side while feeding my son on the other. I also pumped once during the night to increase my supply. After a couple of months, we were able to shift towards exclusively breastfeeding after that. I went back to work when my son was 2 months old and pumped for about 10 months, until my son was one. I never had an excess supply of pumped milk, but I did have a few days always stocked up. 

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Breastfeeding is tough! Breastfeeding and being a working mom comes with a new set of challenges. 10 Breastfeeding tips to help get through the challenges. #nursing #breastfeeding #workingmom

1. Learn how to use your pump

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