The summer has hardly begun, and I plan to enjoy it immensely, yet I’m looking forward to the fall and start of the school year. Here are five things I’m doing this summer to prepare for back to school season:

• Building Relationships with Students Outside of the Classroom
• Attending Workshops
• Listening to Podcasts
• Thinking About Classroom Themes
• Making Wishlists for Classroom Items

Building Relationships

Living in a small community, there are plenty of opportunities to build positive relationships with students in the summer. Many students have summer jobs, play on recreational sports and activity teams, and participate in community events, and it means a lot to them when you show up to support them and tell them you are proud of their progress and work ethic. Having children myself, I also get the chance to connect with my students by giving them an opportunity to practice responsibility and earn some cash by taking my kids to the park for a couple hours a few times a week, or as an evening babysitter. Another way I am building relationships with some of my junior high and high school students this summer is by participating in their weekly summer volleyball scrimmages – it is a lot of fun to be able to “compete” against the student-athletes in a low-stakes environment and get to know them in a non-classroom setting.

Attending Workshops

I make it a point every year to attend at least one workshop or professional development outside of my school district, and it always ends up being a highlight of my summer. Not only do I earn professional development points, I continue to learn about how to better my craft, and most importantly, I meet teachers from all over the state (and sometimes outside the state) who are excited about teaching and learning as well. Keeping in touch with the educators and workshop facilitators has opened a lot of networking opportunities for me and my students, and allowed me to quickly solve problems in my own classroom that I know other teachers have faced because we discussed them at some point.

Workshops I’m excited about this summer include these:

Listen to Podcasts

With four young children, my summer days are often filled with lots of cooking and cleaning and laundry – but far from being tedious, I choose to use that time for both entertainment and learning! Obviously with young ears around, I need to choose podcasts that are both appropriate and in which they might learn something along the way. I tend to either play video podcasts from YouTube or audio only via Spotify. A few of my favorites this summer include:

For STEM Entertainment

• It’s Okay to Be Smart
• SciShow
• PBS Eons

For Guilty Pleasures

• Royal News Network
• Once Upon An Island

For Teaching Strategies

• Sold a Story

Classroom Themes

The first year I ever tried a theme was my 6th year of teaching. As a secondary STEM teacher, themes and decorations just aren’t really my thing, but I admire those teachers whose classrooms are completely decked out – please come help me with mine! However, my chosen theme that year was “Perseverance” and rather than decorate my room with things, I did my best to decorate our conversations and lessons and projects with the idea of and importance of perseverance. This culminated in giving a “Perseverance in Mathematics” award to a well deserving student at our high school awards night.

For the upcoming year, I’m leaning toward a theme relating to the idea that “You Can Do Hard Things” or “It’s Worth It To Work Hard” or something to that effect. I like to use OpenAI’s Chat GPT to help me come up with clever names and sayings. Throughout the year, I also plan to profile people who embody my theme from both local and national or international platforms.

Make Classroom Wishlists

To be completely honest, I have a running classroom wishlist that I keep year long, both on my own Amazon Prime account and on my Teachers Pay Teachers account. Even though many districts do a lot of ordering in the spring for the upcoming school year, the summer is a great time to continue to add to those wishlists.

Even though I keep these lists on my personal accounts, and this is a very important reminder: LET YOUR DISTRICT PAY FOR YOUR CLASSROOM SUPPLIES! I have found every district in which I’ve been employed has always been more than willing to purchase the supplies and curricula that are necessary in my classroom, and if you have to purchase those items yourself, please as your district to reimburse you.

I would not ask my district to pay for extra decorative or comfort/homey type items – but if you are in doubt, it never hurts to ask your principal. They will be the final say on if you can be reimbursed regardless, and it is always a good thing to be in open dialog with them. Keep in mind that if you ask the district to pay for something, you need to leave those items there when/if you leave, so if you would like to personally own something to loan to your classroom, you will want to buy. it yourself.

Other items I tend to purchase myself would be no-prep substitute teacher plans that I need in a pinch because I have a sick child or family emergency.

If you are interested in checking out my beginning of the year essentials wishlist on Teachers Pay Teachers, you can click this link below:

And if you’re interested in my no prep sub plans, click this link:

Each new school year is an opportunity for change and growth. What are you most looking forward to in the coming year? Leave your comments below!

Don’t Forget to Follow Me on Social Media

• Motivation
• Perseverance
• Summer Science Activities
• Teaching Tips & Tricks