Top 10 Tips For A Successful School Year In K-6

Each Summer, my mom would make sure I was ready for the next school year. She would let me enjoy the entire month of July to roam free around town and the lake where we had a cabin.

If it was a rainy day, she took us to the library, where my sister and I would devour one book after another and bring a full bag of new books home too.

The first week of August, she made sure we went back to school shopping for school supplies and clothes when we went to visit her mom, my grandma, in a bigger city than I grew up in. She made sure that I knew how important school and learning are from a very young age.

Reflecting on my childhood has reminded me that when I greet my new group of students for the first time at our school’s “Meet the Teacher Night”, I notice that there are generally two types of back-to-school students: those who want to be there on some level and those who resist at all costs. The first group has a mixture of readers and non-readers. The second group are generally non-reading children.

So, as we are all gearing up for back-to-school time in August, I wanted to share that there is a significant correlation between the amount of time a parent models reading, critical thinking, and problem solving and includes their child in family decision-making processes to the development of the child’s reading, writing, math, and social skills.

Carol Dweck is a well-known psychologist who was very interested in “why some people become helpless when they encounter challenges and fail at them, whereas others respond to failure by trying new strategies and redoubling their effort.” Teachers witness this phenomenon in the classroom on a daily basis.

When caring adults invest their time and energies modelling positive mindsets, the children they live and/or work with will, by association, start to develop these positive mindsets as well.

However, when adults do not consistently invest their time and energies in this manner, children receive mixed messages as to what is actually invaluable life skills.

In my classroom, I take the time at the end of the previous year to get to know my new group of students, on paper, for the upcoming school year. I can go into the Summer knowing how to best prepare my classroom and learning activities to best meet the needs of a variety of learning styles. One constant is the amount of time each day that I will invest in the struggling students to help them develop the same academic and social skill set as their peers. 

On average, I will have anywhere between 5-10 students of a group of 25 who require a distinctly modified and/or adapted learning environment and program. This means I am teaching multiple grade levels in one classroom.

Any parent who homeschools and any teacher in a classroom knows how much time, effort, patience, practice, revisions and retrials it takes to help a child who takes a little longer to learn foundational academic and social skills. These efforts accumulate to countless hours and years. At Education Rocks we offer a way to streamline this process.

The unit and lesson plans in our K-6 Learning Library will help you and your child or students prepare for a successful school year from K-6. The best part is you can edit these resources so that your child or students can focus on what they can do right now and build on it rather than internalize that they are not performing at grade level.

All of our resources include engaging instructional videos, audio functions, and high-definition images. These resources can be used both digitally and non-digitally at home or at school.

If you want to fully preview all unit and lesson plans, you can do so on our Teachers Pay Teachers page!

But aside from utilizing our K-6 Learning Library, my top 10 tips for a successful school year from start to finish are as follows:

1. Breathe. Even if your child seems anxious about going to school, deep down, they are excited for the opportunity to learn and play with friends.

2. Trust your child’s teacher. They have your child’s best interests in mind.

3. Collect basic school supplies (don’t worry if you did not get everything on the teacher’s list).

4. Send your child a nutritious snack and lunch every day. Keep in mind that most schools do offer a breakfast program. Reassure your child that they can receive a warm meal in the morning if needed.

5. Make sure your child has proper indoor and outdoor clothing so that they can move freely and safely throughout the day.

6. Communicate proactively with your child’s teacher.

7. Attend parent-teacher interviews early in the school year and again in the Spring. Your child wants you to take an uninterrupted interest in their learning.

8. Commit to acting on suggestions from the teacher regarding your child’s academic progress.

9. Understand the difference between conflict and bullying. Every child will experience some sort of peer conflict throughout the year. Be reassured that your child’s teacher will follow up and support problem-solving these conflicts.  Conflicts are a small part of a person’s day and can be solved in the classroom or playground.  Bullying is repetitive, malicious, and/or negative attempts to harm another. Be reassured that your child’s school has zero tolerance for bullying. Bullying can be solved with interventions from the school’s administration.

10. Join the parent council.  You will have an opportunity to meet other parents and teachers and help shape the culture of the school.

Let me know if you think there are any tips that I’ve missed! You can email me at hello@educationrocks.ca.

Thank you for reading this blog post on my top 10 tips for a successful school year in K-6. I wish you and your child(ren) or students all the best in this upcoming school year!