If you don’t feel like you have a mentor, hi, I’m Zeba. I can be your mentor teacher!
~ Zeba from Episode 87 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
Did you just find out you are moving to Kindergarten? In this episode, I share my experience as a first-time kindergarten teacher, giving you some tips that helped me my first year. It can be pretty emotional when discovering your new teaching assignment and what helped me most was seeking mentorship from an experienced kindergarten teacher. Reviewing lesson plans helped me manage classroom activities and alleviate stress. Familiarizing myself with the teaching space and understanding the curriculum’s big picture were also crucial steps I took to prepare. I advocate for three main actions: finding a mentor, organizing lesson plans, and assessing the teaching environment, while encouraging new teachers to embrace the journey ahead. Join me in our summer challenge and professional development sessions for further support and insights.
In this episode I share:
- Finding Your Support System
- Preparing Your Classroom Space
- Understanding Your Curriculum
Learn More:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey there, teacher friends. It’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe, and I want to tell you about the first three things I did when I found out I was teaching kindergarten for the first time. So many of you are changing grade levels or getting new jobs or getting their first teaching job, and so I want to walk you through what I did when I found out I was teaching kindergarten for the first time.
[0:22] Music. You’re listening to the kindergarten cafe podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away i’m ziba creator and founder of kindergarten cafe and i help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:17] Okay, so the first thing that I did when I found out I was teaching kindergarten for the very first time was process the news. I was so excited. I wanted to teach kindergarten. So I was really, really excited. And actually, at first, I was told I was teaching second grade and I just wanted the teaching job. So I took it, but I did not want to teach second grade. And then they told me I would be switching to kindergarten and I was so excited. I would much rather have preferred kindergarten to second grade. But after that processing, like give yourself time to process because it might be exactly the news you want to hear. It might not be the news you want. Give yourself time to process the big change that’s going to be coming in your life. And it could be, like I said, exactly what you wanted and you could be super excited. And so you should take time to just be excited and happy for yourself. And it might be not what you wanted to hear and you might be nervous about teaching kindergarten. And so you need time to just process that. The actual first thing I did was find a mentor kindergarten teacher so I could ask them all my questions. And if you are in a place where you don’t have a mentor teacher, you don’t know the teachers on your team, there aren’t other kindergarten teachers on your team, consider me your mentor teacher.
[2:38] I am so appreciative of the help I got from the teachers on my team and teachers that I knew from other schools that I looked up to, that they answered all my questions and helped me feel really supported and ready to teach kindergarten, that I want to do that for you. So if you don’t feel like you have a mentor, hi, I’m Zeba. I can be your mentor teacher. One of the first questions I asked them, because I had a lot of questions, one of the first questions I asked them was, can I see your lesson plans for the first week of school? And that really helped me out. I really benefited from seeing how they planned out their first week of school, how they were teaching their routines, what activities they had. That was really beneficial to me. And that’s why I provide my entire lesson plans exactly as I do them in my back to school product. I have the full two weeks of kindergarten lesson plans laid out for you. Like I said, word for word, what I do with my students minute by minute. Because seeing how a teacher introduces materials.
[3:46] Introduces routines was so helpful to me and took off a huge stressor from my plate because I was I don’t know so much. I don’t even know the questions to ask that it helped me really feel like, OK, I actually do. I do know what I’m talking about and I do feel prepared. And so I can actually focus on some of the other things I’m wondering about. The third thing I did when I found out I was going to teach kindergarten for the first time was I went to see my space. I wanted to know what do I have to work with and what do I want to change or make over the summer or what do what do I need to do over the summer? Even if you can’t get in to actually start working on your space, it’s worth asking if you can just take a peek at it because you should know what’s there already. You don’t want to buy multiple of things or, you know, spend time going to yard sales and Facebook Marketplace and finding things and then come to your school and find out you already have them. It’s a waste of your time. But you also want to kind of sketch out a plan for your classroom, plan out the different areas that you might want and how you might arrange the furniture.
[4:59] And like I said, make a plan for if there’s something you need to make over the summer, what might that be? I had so many summer projects for making the classroom look exactly the way I wanted to. And I kind of wished I’d had a little more guidance. So again, that’s why I’ve created the summer challenge for you this year. It’s why I’ve created my PD by the pool for new kindergarten teachers. And it’s why I’ve created the guide for new kindergarten teachers to help you figure out like how to set up your space for a kindergarten classroom. It would have saved me a lot of time and money buying things I didn’t need to buy and trying things out that didn’t work. And so that’s why I’ve created those resources for you so you don’t have to do that.
[5:47] And a bonus thing I did. If you have time, if you have access, get to know some of your curriculum and materials. But I’m not talking take home unit one and start lesson planning.
[6:02] No, no, I don’t think that’s a good use of your time over the summer. I think that you should familiarize yourself with the big picture. I think you should get a sense of what will the routines be in your room in order to teach the curriculum. Some of the curriculum have helpful tips for that. Some don’t. And so that’s why I’ve shared a lot of my routines through the new teacher guide or my August-September teaching guide. Like I’ve shared a lot of that and we’ll be talking a lot about routines in the summer challenge. But I think that that’s definitely something you want to spend time over the summer brainstorming and thinking about. So summer is a great time to be sitting outside by the pool, by a lake, by the beach, and daydreaming about what it is you want your classroom to look like and not actually spending the entire summer working on it. If you don’t know the routines, you’re not going to be able to introduce the routines and teach the routines. You’re not going to be able to set up your classroom in a way that benefits the routines or follows the routines. And so having an idea for how you want the routines to go, what you want it to look like in your room when you’re teaching reading or math will be really important for you to do over the summer. And so that’s where seeing the curriculum is helpful. But again, not the time to be lesson planning, lesson one of unit one. You will get there. You don’t need to do that on day one.
[7:27] Day one, you can see in my lesson plans, I don’t start curriculum until week three because I am focused solely on classroom routines. So don’t worry about lesson one, unit one yet, but read it to get a sense of what could your routines look like when you’re teaching kids about what does reading look like or where, you know, how should I have my writing paper set up when I set up my classroom, that kind of thing. So again, the three things I did when I found out I was first teaching kindergarten was find a mentor teacher.
[7:58] Hi, I’m Zeba. I can be your mentor teacher. The second thing I did was I figured out the lesson plans that I would need for the first two weeks of school. I asked for example lesson plans from a bunch of people. I figured out like the activities that I’d want to do and seeing the example lesson plans from a mentor teacher were so helpful. And the third thing I did was I saw the space that I’d be working with. I didn’t start working on the classroom. I didn’t have access to it, but just taking a peek and seeing what’s there so I don’t have to buy a ton of things that I don’t need or get things ready that I don’t need, making a plan for how I want the furniture and setup to be, those are the first three things that I did when I found out I was teaching kindergarten. So if you are new to teaching kindergarten, breathe. It will be okay. I will be here for you. I highly encourage you to join the summer challenge and PD by the pool so that I can be even more help to you as you navigate this journey.
[9:02] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies if you liked this episode the best ways to show your support are to subscribe leave a review or send it to a friend i’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips see you then.