REAL + HONEST OPINION | WHAT YOU DON'T NEED TO BUY!

[Music] i feel like i know now what are good purchases to make as a first year teacher and what are not good purchases to make what has worked for me in the last couple years and what hasn't the first thing that i highly highly recommend getting is things that may not be the most necessary in your classroom and the first one is right behind me this one might be a little but hello everybody welcome back to my channel if you are new here welcome my name is madison i am a second year second grade teacher i am so happy you're here today's video is very exciting because i got the idea for this video by one of you guys i got a message on instagram that essentially just said please make a video telling us um either current teachers or future teachers or coming up on our first year teachers what do we need to have in our classroom what has worked for you what hasn't worked for you and this sparked an idea and so i was like you know what that's a great video idea because i've been teaching for two full years now and i've had three classrooms actually my first year i only taught half a year so technically i've been in the classroom for two and a half years i feel like i know now what our good purchases to make as a first year teacher and what are not good purchases to make and things that have been useful things that have not been so useful so i compiled a list for you guys and we're gonna get right into it first i want to thank the sponsor of this video i'm so excited to introduce the sponsor of this video to you guys today because i think that it is such an awesome platform and that is tracked you can find tracked at track dot app which i will have right here as well as linked down below and essentially attract is a peer to peer online learning program it's kids teaching kids which i thought was just genius such a great idea and such a great place for kids to go to but also a great platform for teachers to use in the classroom with their kids it's for grades 3 through 12 to discover new interests build new skills and just overall fuel their inner creativity essentially it's project based learning where kids are teaching other kids new skills or teaching them about their own interests it's designed to help empower kids to learn new skills and learn deeper critical thinking skills or maybe learn a new passion a new skill or a new hobby from another student or another peer as well tract offers a structured supportive and most of all safe learning environment for kids to engage with other kids and learn from other kids there are so many kids out there nowadays that want to be a you know an actor or the next youtube star they want their voice to be heard they want that spotlight which is not a bad thing and this platform provides them that space to share to create to motivate other kids and other kids can kind of learn from them and i just think that's so amazing because every student really deserves to have that spotlight on them especially if they have something they want to say something to share or teach and this gives them that chance so it's really cool tracked designed it so that each student who is preferably eight years old or above can pick their own activity or lesson and it's called a mission and they go on to complete that mission students can earn digital coins for completing their different paths and if a mission requires more paths then they will earn more coins and students can redeem those coins for digital and physical prizes it's also really great for teachers like i said because as a teacher you can use this during your instructional time by assigning different missions or lessons or activities to your students for them to complete there's also something i think is really cool called the tracked teachers lounge where you can log in as a teacher as an educator and interact with other educators in that same space i just think this is the coolest platform for both students and teachers and when i hear about platforms like this i just have to share it with you guys because as a teacher there are times whenever you're just looking for something else something new something innovative for your students and this is it i absolutely love it and i think you guys could really benefit from it as well so it is absolutely 100 free if you guys would like to try out tract which like i said i will have the link down below if you guys would like to check it out along with my code that you need to use to get it free also have the code in the description box below for you to copy and paste and let me know if you guys end up checking it out i'd love to hear your stories and how you ended up using it in your classroom and let's get on with the rest of the video all right friends we're going to start off with the things that i love and use as a teacher things that i personally think would be a great purchase if you're going into teaching going into your first year or even if you're already a teacher and you don't have these things the first thing that i highly highly recommend you getting is this beauty right next to me a 10 or 15 drawer cart for organizing all of your lesson plans for the week if you guys have been following for a while you know i've had this guy for since my first classroom a couple years ago and i use it every single day every week and it has helped me organize my life so much i really don't know what system i would use if i didn't have it i guess i could use like a file folder um i've seen some teachers do that but personally for me it makes it so easy just every single week before i print out all my copies for the week and i organize them into their day of the week monday through friday and that way i come in on monday all i have to do is open the monday drawer grab out my papers for the week lay them out on my tabletop and i'm ready to go so anything that helps organize your life highly recommend next necessary purchase as a teacher is a planner i really would not be able to live i don't think without my planner i use it religiously not only every week but i use it every single day to again organize my plans for the week every thursday i meet with my grade level team and we go over our plans for the week and if you're interested in seeing my plans like how i lesson plan kind of in depth i do have a video all about that which i will have linked right here for you guys to go watch i tried to break down the lesson planning process as best as i could um so hopefully that will help you but i'll have that linked right there for you and that's why using a planner is so necessary for me not only does it break down daily but it breaks down what i'm teaching by subject areas so if you do get a planner i recommend you finding some sort of teacher planner i know the daily planner happy planner or erin condren planners are all great options i think any of those that give you that subject breakdown is really really helpful i know both of my team teachers they have planners just like it and i really think it's the best way it's a lesson plan next up very important purchase as a first year teacher books now you can thrift books you can get books donated to you i'm not saying you need to go out and buy all of these things some of these things you may be able to um find people that are giving it away for free maybe discounted at some sort of like thrift store or check your facebook marketplace that's what i did pretty much everything that i'm talking about i would look on facebook marketplace for first and just to see if anyone's getting one away or willing to donate to my classroom but you can never you'll never regret having too many books and that's something that i personally was so so happy that i took seriously and the months leading up to me getting my first teaching job i went like book crazy and i honestly think i had too many books which i don't know how that's possible but i really think i had too many books because i ran out of like shelving space for them but it's never something you'll regret having for me they have been used religiously every single day in my classroom i'm looking at my library right now and they're like everywhere my library needs to be reorganized but that means they're being used which makes my teacher heart happy every single day i have students digging through my library trying to find a new book and they love them they love the books and i'm just so grateful that i have this big library so books are never something that will go out of style and always a great idea to start collecting prior to your first year another purchase that you might think would be frivolous and not necessary but it's something i have used every single day in the classroom since i got my first classroom and that is kind of like a headphone storage kit um i'm pretty sure you just they're like shoe organizers that you can buy online i use mine for headphone storage now it totally depends on the school you're in if you guys have technology or are one-to-one with ipads we personally are one-to-one with ipads so each one of my students has their own headphones and this helps keep them organized um i'm pretty sure my first classroom i did not have one of these and i just remember headphones were getting lost stolen stepped on broken because they were being like thrown in their cubbies and now it gives them a place and it's so nice at the end of ipad time they go and they put their headphones back in their number spots and we never lose them and this entire school year we've never had an issue with losing or keeping track of headphones next up any type of organizational ben so i'll show you a few around the room that i have i use bins for everything you name it i use them to organize our reading mats our friday folders extra paper student data supplies i use bins for everything and honestly i have too many bins i'm at the point now where my cabinets are like full of empty bends but that's okay i'd rather have too many because when i started off in my first classroom i did not have enough and there's just so many things in a classroom that you need to organize and personally for me i hate when everything is just like thrown into a cabinet i like everything to have its own place you can see that i like to label my bends so i have bends labeled for dry erase markers extra paper colored pencils that way everything has its place in my room which not only just like helps make my heart happy because it makes everything more organized in my classroom but it also helps out your students especially if you have little students that are always trying to find something or put something away in its correct spot this keeps from things just being thrown into a cabinet it keeps everything organized so i definitely would invest in some bins whether that's bins from targets i know amazon has really good bands um definitely check out your local thrift store and just get whatever like tubs or bends that you can find kind of on the same page with that reading bends um i didn't mention this before but as i'm looking around i forgot that reading bins are so important so we have our little book bends in each one of our cubbies and then we also have the book bends in our library units so i use book bins to store library books like to organize my classroom library but each one of my students has their own library bin to store their notebook folders and library book that they check out from the school library so just having a ben for each student to individually store their supplies is so helpful and i always number them with like their student number so that they know it's their been with their books and their supplies inside of it and that just keeps everything organized for them next up kind of on the same page as having their own bin i give them their own supply bag so basically this started mid last year when i realized okay i need something to help my kids organize their supplies not like books and folders but they're pencils and pens and markers crayons scissors glue all of the stuff that we use on a weekly basis and i didn't want it just thrown in their beds i didn't want it in their backpacks because i didn't want them digging through their backpacks every single day or every other day whenever we use those supplies so instead i got them all these little supply bags these are from amazon you can get them in a bundle and they're big they have enough space to hold student supplies and i put their names on each one of them so they have their own bag with their own supplies so nothing gets mixed up and they keep them underneath their table or on top of their table just depending on if you guys have desks or tables whichever way you want to do it um and that way they are out of reach whenever they don't need them but they're close enough so that whenever i say okay get out your scissors and glue they can bend down underneath their table open their supply bends and get out their supplies next up really important part of my classroom this wasn't necessarily like a one-time purchase but this was something that i created my second year of teaching because i didn't have one my first year and i really regretted it and that is our information center so our information center is where we have everything that the kiddos will need so we go over the calendar every morning we go over the date the days of the week the weather it's where i post our class jobs it's pretty much just where all the information is that kiddos are going to ask you about on a daily basis and if you teach primary grades it's something that you know it's something you really want to go over with your kiddos and we go over each one of these things every single morning during morning meeting and i remember my first year of teaching i didn't have something like this and i really wish i did because during our morning meetings when we would talk about what day it was and stuff like that i didn't have a visual so this has been a game changer to kind of organize how our morning meetings flow every single morning i pick a student to go over the calendar for the class they pick someone to go over the dates of the week and that person picks someone to go over the weather and like i said it has our class jobs up there as well so the kiddos can visually see what their job is so just having some sort of visual in front of your classroom with all the information and you might have other information that you want to put up there but i definitely recommend using one of your bulletin boards in the classroom for that got a couple questions where i got the calendar that i have and i got that calendar from the target dollar spot a couple years ago so i'm not sure that they still had that out um but it was just a pocket chart calendar which you can get from anywhere but definitely keep your eye out for the target dollar spot because target dollar spot always has really good stuff at the beginning of a school year next up something that i could not go without is some sort of teacher chair whether that's a rocking chair or just like a comfy chair it's something that if your school doesn't provide for you i would definitely recommend going out and buying because i use that every single day without fail of my entire teaching career whether it's during morning meeting or read-alouds or whatever it may be that is my chair my spot the kids know not to touch it and it's just a space for you to go especially if you are all gathering on the carpet next up is having some sort of three-tier cart or some sort of cart to organize your small group area this is the card that i've been using to organize my small groups and it has been a game changer with keeping me organized and honestly i created this cart and like organized this card at the beginning of my first year of teaching and i've never really had to mess with it again because it still has everything i need from that first year it's ready to go and if you go on to teach for years to come it'll always be there and it's not like you have to re you know stock the cart every single year you should still just have your supplies in there that you need because it's not something that you'll be passing out to the class the markers that are going to get lost the white boards that are going to get lost it's your car that you are in charge of and i always keep mine like tucked behind my table so my kids can't get into it but as you see here it just has reading small group supplies math small group supplies as well as white boards and markers stuff like that that you would use during your small group just to keep it all organized so that you don't have to go grab it every single time before your small group you can just pull up your cart and have it ready to go next purchase that i'm so happy that i have is my little tool box my teacher toolbox if you guys remember this was so like 2020 teacher gram vibes every single teacher on instagram had this toolbox and every teacher decorate it their own way so funny to think about um but i purchased this back in 2020 like i said and never regretted it for a day essentially the teacher toolbox is just where you would keep everything that you need from band-aids to paper clips to extra batteries chargers tape staples literally anything and these are honestly things that you use on a daily basis as a teacher i thought at first like am i even gonna use that like it's fun to organize but am i really gonna use it and yes i use it every single day if not multiple times a day again i keep it tucked away behind my back table away from the kids because i made that mistake my first year my kids were constantly getting into it so now i tuck it away just for me to get into and if my kids need anything out of there i can open it and get stuff out for them but that's been a game changer just keeping all those little things organized next up i would hope and assume that your school would provide this for you but if not you may have to get it yourself and that is a teacher desk um i know some schools that don't even provide teacher desks the first school i ever worked at they gave me a little tiny little corner desk against the wall that could hold nothing so i personally use my flexi spot desk standing rising desk and it really just like keeps everything organized for me again and i don't know what i would do without it because i don't want everything just on my small group table so having some sort of desk to organize all of your teacher supplies your planner all papers just anything that you want to keep kind of like private and for yourself and away from the rest of the class that's what i use my desk for my desk has drawers so any extra teacher supplies paper staples like sticker sets stuff like that that i want to keep away and private i keep in there for myself and it's just so nice just to have your own no your own area where you can go and you know nobody's gonna be messing with it um highly highly recommend i love the flexi spot rising desk because you can stand at it as well but yeah definitely having just your own space in the classroom hopefully your school will provide you a desk but if not highly recommend the flexi spot dust going on to things that may not be the most necessary in your classroom and that's the first one is right behind me y'all i bought this giant photo keeper from michael's back again in the 2020 teacher graham days when everybody was doing the same thing and i was told like you're going to use this every day to store your task cards to store anything that you want because they're basically just little photo boxes to store stuff in i'm not kidding when i tell you i have opened this twice in two years i've opened this box twice um i don't know why i personally just never reach for it and i personally would not be the first teacher to say run and go get this photo keeper box because i really don't even understand why all these teachers were running to go get it because i don't what are you keeping in there that you're using every day i mean i guess you can store task cards in here like i did but i just don't reach for them as much so and it's not user friendly because when you open the front i'm not even gonna do it when you open it they all come pouring out you have to have it laying flat to like open it and it's just not kid friendly because they're all gonna see it cute like this and go to open it and they all fly everywhere i don't know you guys if you use your photo box let me know like comment down below how you use it in like an efficient manner in your classroom how do you make use of it because i haven't found a good way to make use of it thus far next up this one might be a little controversial but i personally would say you do not need to run out and buy your own cricket i have a cricket i love my cricket i have used my cricket a few times but i personally would not go advise every beginning teacher that is on a beginning teacher's budget to run out and go buy a 600 cricket kit i just don't think it's necessary now if you love crafting like if this is your jam crickets are your jam go for it but personally i have only used mine a handful of times and i just don't think it's something that every single first year teacher needs to run out and go buy let me know if you agree let me know if you disagree and if you love your qriket and couldn't live without it but i personally could live without it it's fun to have i love having it i you know i think it's really cool to have if you are a crafty person but personally i don't think it's for everybody stop possibly something else that's controversial but i would say you do not need to buy like a plethora of furniture and pillows because over the years i have realized that one they always get ruined like really really fast and i for one i'm not going to go out and re-buy any more pillows because the pillows that i do have they're gross they're dirty a lot of the stuffing has already been ripped out of them they just go bad so it's fun in the beginning of the year when you have like all this really nice furniture and it looks so cute and the kids are all excited but halfway through the year you're gonna realize you should not have spent the money on that furniture now if your school provides something for you that's awesome but for me personally i went out and i bought like a beanbag chair i bought like 10 pillows i bought some of those like comfy support pillows and i am down to like seven pillows the beanbag chair was ripped my other pillows were torn in half the ones i have right now are kind of gross um honestly just wouldn't recommend spending a ton of money on that stuff i spend a ton of money on really nice classroom rugs and both of them are now kind of like wrinkled and torn a little bit the white rug is super dirty um it just it doesn't hold up very well in a classroom because you constantly have 20 or more little children running all over them using them abusing them and it's just not worth it so i know it's so fun to like go out and buy all that stuff at the beginning of the year but i personally would not make that mistake again just because it's not worth it now they can use maybe like a little bit more sturdy furniture around the room if you have different types of like sturdy chairs for them to sit on but the fluffy cute stuff does not last so would not go out to buying all these cute pillows now a couple things for me personally that i haven't really ended up using much as a teacher which might come as a shock to you guys because you see it in my classroom photographed a lot and they look so cute but just something that i really never made much use of one are my voice level signs that you guys always see on my front board they are so cute and for the classroom aesthetic i love them and honestly when i first started teaching i did refer to them a lot but i'm not gonna lie i have not referred to those voiceable signs in many many months probably closer to the beginning of the school year every now and then my students will ask um to move the little finger on the voice level but i personally don't utilize it every single day or even every week so for me that's more up there because it looks cute um but i don't really use it just being honest on the same track is my callback signs i made these and i had them to download on my tbt personally not really use them we have a callback and we've used it throughout the year my kids know it we don't really need 100 signs on the wall to tell them all of these callbacks we just have used one in the beginning of the year and it's stuck so again looks cute but we haven't really used it that much and lastly are the finger signs you know to tell if we need a drink we need water or a pencil and this is something that at the very very beginning of the year i actually did reference and my kiddos started using it but again one of those things if it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you i just noticed my kids were kind of like abusing it always showing me fingers and i was like you know what just raise your hand and ask me if you have something that you need to go do something to take care of so i haven't really referenced those the rest of the year either kind of funny as a teacher you learn as you go at the beginning of the year you have all these ideas and you think oh i'll add this in my classroom this is my classroom and you don't know what's going to work until you start teaching and it totally also depends on the type of class and the type of classroom environment that you have you might have a classroom environment that you absolutely need those voice level science to refer to every moment of the day but i personally don't so these are just some things that i personally got a lot of use of some things that i personally did not get a lot of use out of this does not mean every single teacher should follow this but i am just showing you guys kind of what has worked for me in the last couple years and what hasn't i thought that would be a fun video idea i hope it at least helps some of you if you're going into teaching kind of know what to add to your list and maybe some things to take off of your list i also recommend you wait until you get into your classroom to see what does your school already provide for you and maybe even wait until the first week or two of the school year to start buying other stuff you may realize ooh i'm really glad i didn't buy that resource off of tpt because i'm probably not going to end up using it um or you might think okay i think i do need to go out and buy some of those organizers because i don't have enough and then you can go out and buy them you don't need to stock up on everything right now wait until you start teaching and getting getting into your groove and then you can kind of take a step back and think okay what more do i need to help me out in my classroom i personally spend probably too much money as a first year teacher so i'm just trying to help out those you who are going into teaching to recognize if you need something or not but of course it's your own journey i am so excited for you guys who just got a teaching job you're going to kill it you're going to have the best year ever take it day by day i promise you it gets easier as you go and thank you so much for watching this video i love and appreciate all of you guys and thank you just for your support every single day throughout my entire teaching career thus far you guys have been there literally since day one of when i started teaching and so it's crazy for you guys to be here watching me now giving advice to other new teachers so thank you so much i appreciate and love you guys i hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did give it a thumbs up so i know what kind of videos you want me to make in the future i can definitely make some more teacher advice videos if you guys want them and comment down below what your favorite teacher supply is that you have if you're currently a teacher what is the number one thing that you use and love in your classroom and i will see you guys in my next video bye

Channel: Madison Campbell

Views: 23,598

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Id: LnGBHJ4AkII

Length: 27min 49sec (1669 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022