Every year, coming up with the theme for my classroom was so exciting for me. I would hop onto Pinterest and scroll for ideas, create a board for the school year and have it set in my mind that I was going to create every bulletin board I pinned and make my classroom perfect…

Then I would arrive and receive my agenda for pre-planning week, sigh because I would either have to stay super late to complete all of my ideas or just go without.

After years of staying super late and starting a school year pregnant, I decided no more. I needed to work smarter, not harder.

Here’s a list of what I followed to make Pre-Planning and the first week of school Easy Peasy:

1. Walk into your classroom and write a list of what you want to accomplish during pre-planning on your board. Not on a post-it or a sheet of paper (you will lose it, trust me.) Follow that list in the order that it is written. Don’t skip around. If you skip around, nothing will be finished. (Been there, done that way too many times.)

2. Keep it simple and stick to a budget. Don’t go over the top with decorations. The kids just want a place to feel welcomed and loved. Visit the Target Dollar spot or use coupons at JoAnn Fabrics.

3. Allow the kids to create the boards. Put up a simple border and wait for  your students to arrive. Allow them to decide what they would like displayed.

4. At Meet & Greet, give each parent/guardian a set of labels with the kids names on it. Have the parents attach labels to the supplies. OR give each parent/guardian a baggie with a student label on it and have them fill the bags. This will save you hours of time going through each child’s giant bag of supplies. Also, it will give the parents something to do when they walk in and wait for your presentation.

5. Finally, don’t be afraid to give you students a challenging activity when they arrive. Yes, go over the rules and procedures. But then give them an assignment that’s going to require them to think and that may take them multiple days to complete. If you give them busy work, they are going to get distracted very quickly and you will spend most of your week redirecting. (Trust me you are going to need time during the day to organize their supplies, label their folders, separate their back to school forms, you know the drill.