A Teacher’s Back to School Tips

posted by: Melissa | July 23, 2019, 03:17 PM

Today’s guest post is by Roseangela Mendoza, a 2019 AAE Fellow.

Ah summer! The days of heat and adventure for many students and their families! How can we help our children transition from the mostly unstructured summer to the structured school days?

Bedtime

Based on my own experience raising my 12-year-old (entering 7th grade), start setting a schedule in August. For example, if in the summer, a standard time to go to bed doesn’t exist, start with a time closest to when they have been going to bed, even if it is 10:00pm, then after a few days/weeks until school starts you should have them going to bed as close to or exactly at the ideal bedtime for school. Although my 12-year-old doesn’t agree, bedtime is no later than 9:00pm.

Reading

If you have an avid reader, then you have nothing to worry about! However, if you have a child whose reading habits fluctuate or dwindle over the summer months, try building reading stamina. Start the process with five minutes, then ten, then twenty, and more if they start to enjoy reading. Doing this will help them transition much more easily to the classroom as well as tackling homework assignments.

Writing

Have your child write as much as you can during the summer. In this day and age, writing is not as necessary since we have all sorts of applications on our phones! Simple things like writing the shopping list, or things they think they will need for a project or a trip - anything will get them started. If you want to get creative, have your child write you a letter explaining why they need ONE MORE video game, or why they need to watch that movie they’ve been wanting to watch, etc.

Independence

Make sure your child is able to do things on their own such as: organizing things, cleaning up, and general things they can do by themselves. This will help them when they are back in school and you aren’t there to help them.

Roseangela Mendoza is a Middle School Social Studies Teacher at The Ethical Community Charter School in Jersey City, NJ. She is an AAE member and 2019 Advocacy Fellow for the Association of American Educators. In her work she focuses on increasing student equity and equal funding for charter schools. You can follow Roseangela on https://www.facebook.com/roseangela.mendoza and @roseangela_mendoza

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