Dear Future Teachers...

hey y'all welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is brianna and i'm a third grade teacher in north carolina and this video is dedicated to all of you first year teachers new teachers if you are in college anywhere near that realm this is for you so first off i should probably start by saying i'm going into my sixth year of teaching so i have a good amount of years under my belt and i just feel like i had to put this out into the universe right now with all of the classroom setup videos going on all of the classroom hauls going on the way that teacher youtube has just grown the way that teacher instagram is massive please please please please do not feel like your first year of teaching or ever that your classroom has to look like what you see on the internet now that could be a goal of yours absolutely but do not go out and spend all your money right now just so you can line up with what you see out there majority of the teachers who are posting classroom setup videos with matching bins and labels and different colored bins and different things going on they've been teaching for a few years like myself and most of us have collected those things over the years now for everybody of course it's different but please don't feel like you need everything to match you need everything to be perfect your first year of teaching i mean like i said you don't need it ever i need you to know that you need to go into this year focusing on one thing okay if decorating your classroom makes you happy go for it i was there oh my goodness you can scroll back all the way to the end of my instagram to see my first year my circus classroom like i was so excited to decorate my first classroom however i made a lot of my stuff or i bought a few things that matched my theme the major thing i bought that first year was library bins and i got all of them from the dollar store that was maybe 25 i spent i did go to a few like carson delosa warehouse sales and bought really cheap things that actually i never really even ended up using for my classroom i really strongly urge you to wait until you see what your school offers you what's already in your classroom what your pto can provide for you and then go ahead and invest in those things if you have to my classroom carpet it ended up being over 600 dollars guys i got that through donors choose but you don't always need that right away my school provides carpets for every classroom now is it exactly what i wanted absolutely not but i waited a few years before i took the plunge and set up a donor's shoes which actually isn't really a plunge so if you want a new carpet go there manipulatives please do not stock up on manipulatives because you do not know what your school has to offer you okay i promise a lot of things come with math curriculums a lot of schools already have things once you get there then decide like i have fraction manipulatives provided by my school however i really wanted fraction towers and i actually didn't even spend my money on those i did a donor's choose for those as well all of the flexible seating around my classroom i ended up doing a donor shoes for that too but that was four years into my career i waited to see what i could handle especially flexible seating that's a whole other topic i could talk about but i just feel like for me the argument was always i love flexible seating but i want to make sure i get my classroom management behavior management down before i start introducing fun chairs and different things like that into my classroom so i waited supplies student supplies a lot of people have been messaging me on instagram and asking like what things i recommend stocking up on they're still in college what should they get for their classroom please do not stock up on expo markers highlighters pencils first of all those things are always sold it's not like they're going to run out okay if you see something cute and it's in the target dollar spot and you think you're never going to see it again okay get it majority of items are always going to be restocked and you're always going to be able to get them so please do not buy those things also if you don't even have a school yet you don't know what that is going to look like my students and my families purchase all of their own materials i do not provide that if any children cannot get their own materials then our school provides it for them so you need to wait on those things i know you're excited trust me i know you can go back to my old videos as well now i didn't start youtube until halfway into my first year of teaching but like i said i posted on instagram i made a lot of things on powerpoint like there are different ways to do it without blowing the bank if you want to get creative make things on powerpoint dig into that see what you could do there but like i said even though decorating a classroom is fun and labeling things is amazing don't pour all your time and energy into that all the time you can focus on that right now over the summer while you don't have students but also you should be thinking about what are your different expectations what are your different procedures how are you going to run guided reading how are you going to run small group math are you going to do centers like you kind of should be looking into those things as well i remember my first year of teaching when ins teacher instagram was kind of becoming a thing teacher youtubes were like scarce it was like michelle bridget and me and latonya and megan it was really not like a big thing i'm pretty sure megan might be the first one that i found i just remember going into interviews or prepping for my classroom and although i was getting a few cute things to decorate i was also reading blog posts because i found most of my information on pinterest and that led me to blog post and i was looking up different behavior management strategies in the classroom different activities for the first few days of school how to start incorporating different centers into my room how to run a successful guided reading block like you also want to make sure you're familiarizing yourself with that because that is 10 000 times more important than the way your classroom looks i am such a strong believer in like a fun beautiful classroom but i don't want you to forget about what's important especially right now so like i said some people were asking me what they should buy for their classroom and honestly books but not brand new books okay ask family members to donate at my college graduation party i put on my invitation if if you have any old children's books that you would like to donate to my classroom please bring them and that's how i got a lot of my books i also bought like a few here and there in random places but when i got hired there happened to be a teacher that was retiring and i got her entire classroom library so again you don't know what you're walking into i do not purchase books anymore unless there is something that is not on scholastic but i i get my kids or i give out the flyers for my students to order scholastic books and then i get points for my classroom and so i use those points to buy new books i am not out there spending all of my money on books especially when i have a pretty full classroom library i have new things in there the kids are excited about it but also they go to the library at school and they have options there so if you don't have that many books your first year don't stress about it the other thing i would suggest is a teacher tool box that is the number one thing that obviously is not going to be in your classroom when you get there and i use it daily it's a great way to organize all my supplies i did not buy the things that are in it okay my school provided those except a good staple remover but that's like seven bucks on amazon but all the teacher supplies like office supplies i did not buy those even a stapler and a tape dispenser my school gave me that now i know everyone's not in the same boat but like i'm saying those things are always available so don't just run out to the store i know you're excited trust me i have been there i have 100 been there but i recommend setting up a teacher toolbox buy or make your own labels or buy a little pack on teachers pay teachers not that expensive print them out ooh another thing that's really handy if you really want to buy things a scotch laminator you can buy generic laminating sheets but that and then an hp instant ink printer i have my hp instant ink link below if you want to sign up i think you get like a month free or something but those things i use a lot a small paper cutter that way you can create things at home and then you can be doing something you know but those are things that you will use from year to year to year the other thing i was thinking about is how you're going to store your copies so i store my monday through friday copies in the magazine bins from big lots which are essentially book bins but they're the same height all the way around and i don't think they sell those anymore which is really disappointing but i love the book bins that's what i've done for the past three years and i i really really like that because i could see everything in front of me and it's easy to grab whereas my first two years i did the little drawers which works as well so decide your system for that that's something that you could be setting up those are things that are going to be helpful helpful for you organization is key as a teacher trust me oh my goodness i can't say that enough so whether you want to do book bins which you can get really cheap ones i know walmart has a whole rainbow set of five i believe and then the dollar spot and target had some even dollar tree has some theirs are a little bit smaller but you can buy them you don't have to go to really good stuff even though they're really good my book bins for my students my school purchased those as well so you just need to wait and be patient for those bigger items because i don't want you to spend all your money on that guys you don't need to do that so decide a system if you want to use one of those rolling drawer carts the one that i just purchased in my classroom for my construction paper 30 bucks if if you want it i don't necessarily recommend that system just because those drawers i don't like those drawers but you know it's up to you choose something that that's going to help you get ready those are the things that you can be focused on along with a little bit of classroom setup but don't feel like you need to go in and look like some of those teachers that are out there don't feel like you need all matching binge your first year if you've seen my cabinet purging videos and organization videos that i'm doing right now i still don't have all matching bins in my cabinet those doors are closed no one's looking in them like that is not priority that is not even important at all yes it's nice yes it's aesthetically pleasing but that's why i'm going back now six years later and finishing all that okay and i'm not even getting rid of all of them most of my bins came from the dollar tree a dollar i'm just watching some people set up videos and getting overwhelmed with the amount of things that they have and that they've actually spent their own money on and if you have it great but i suggest you wait until you see what you are offered use donors choose use your family use your family members that sounds terrible but you know what i mean it's possible and like i said it just does not have to be comparable to what is out there at all make it your own make it what you need to be the best teacher for those children okay i wish you guys the best of luck and i hope that my videos and my instagram posts and just everyone out there is helpful on your journey if you ever need anything please let me know i'm always here for you alright thank you for watching i'll see y'all next time bye

Channel: PuttingFourthEffort

Views: 1,895

Rating: 4.9136691 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, education, educator, fourth grade, first year, tips, tricks, classroom, elementary, third grade, day in the life, week in the life, organize, create, help, class, learn, lessons, lesson plan, planner, lifestyle, health, weight watchers, ww, fitness

Id: i7085HfZJJk

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021