42. Tips to Get Students (and Teachers) Back in a Routine After Winter Break

Going back to school after a winter break and getting back into a routine isn't easy for teachers or students. The second semester is a chance to make changes and to start fresh for the second half of the school year. Listen to this episode to learn what to prioritize when your students walk back through your classroom door in January so that you can establish routines and rapport on the second first day of school.

If you are looking to make changes to school and home life balance, or fear you are on the edge of burning out and quitting teaching, I have a resource that could help you out. My free Teachaholic Action Guide gives you the questions, organizers, and quizzes to help you get yourself to a place of peace for what you need to do to be happy, healthy, and whole. You can get the guide here.

Get your copy of Teachaholic: The 7-Day MindSET Shift to Conquer Burnout, Build Life-Changing Boundaries, and Reignite Your Love for Teaching at www.erinsponaugle.com/book.

You can download the Teachaholic Action Guide to begin your journey back from burnout here.

Download your FREE checklist, The Great 88: Rules, Routines, and Expectations to Go Over and Over, and feel confident establishing classroom management.

For more resources on classroom management, time management, and preserving mental well-being to avoid teacher burnout, visit www.erinsponaugle.com.

Find more upper elementary classroom resources by visiting Next Chapter Press on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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Transcript

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Being the teacher isn't what it used to be. The good news is you don't have to figure it out on your own. If you're looking for truth, inspiration, and tips for success, in the classroom and beyond, you're in the right place. It's time to turn the page to the future of the profession. This is the next chapter for teachers podcast. Hello everyone. Welcome to the next chapter for teachers podcast. I'm Erin Spinagle, and this is episode 42. It's the start of season five. Welcome back. I took the last two weeks off to be completely off off during my break from school, but here we are getting ready to start the next semester. And that's actually what we're going to talk about today: getting transitioned back into the new year, a new semester, and ways to set up your students so that they are prepared and ready to get on with the next uh sec next next part of the school year. So if you're feeling a little sad and anxious going back to school, I'm going back tomorrow. There's no kids tomorrow, but I'll be there tomorrow getting ready and going to meetings and preparing for the uh round two that's coming up. If if you're feeling a little down in the dumps about going back tomorrow, it doesn't mean that you are wrong or bad for that. It's kind of normal because you've probably had a chance over the past week or week and a half or however long you've had off to focus on things that you may not have been able to give attention to in a while. Maybe dealing with some things at home or doing the things that you personally needed to do uh to get through the holidays or to just take care of yourself. It's kind of like we we're in recovery when we we have an extended break from school. Not just in the summer, like whenever there is a longer break during the school year. And it's it's hard to part with that part of yourself once you get into a groove and you you get to relax. And along with that, it's it's also winter. And during the winter months, there's less daylight, the days are shorter, it's easier to feel a little more sad, and going back to a routine in school where you don't have the freedom to address the things you'd like to whenever you'd like to do them, it's normal. So, like I said, we are getting into round two of the school year. New semester, it's also new chances to do things differently, do things better. So if something last semester wasn't working for you, if things were rough, they don't necessarily have to stay that way. There's a chance that we can turn things around and make things better, make things work in a way that allows you to not feel as distressed or not have your students be as uh distressing in whatever they were doing uh than they were the first semester. Now, does that mean everything will be perfect? Absolutely not. I've been doing this long enough to know that's not the case, but I do know that if we look at it as two halves instead of just one big continuous school year, we can have a better outlook and we can take care of the things that need to be changed in a way so that we can have a fresh start. So I am not really into resolutions, so I'm not gonna talk about New Year's resolutions today. Haven't made any. I make a birthday resolution, and my birthday isn't until April. So I will not be making a resolution this year or any other year. But if you are looking to make changes in your teaching or your relationship to school in your personal life, if you want to create balance, my Teach Aholic Action Guide is free. It has reflection questions, graphic organizers, there's a quiz. There's things that can help you if you are feeling burnt out already from this school year, that you can use it to change course. And along with that Teach Holic Action Guide, it goes along with my book, Teach Aholic, and I will put the links to both of those in the show notes if you are interested. But back to tomorrow, if you're going back tomorrow in some capacity. This is being recorded on the Sunday before I go back to school for the new for the new year, new semester. It's hard getting back in a routine after you have had a chance to be away from it. Even if things were going well, it's just hard to get back in the groove again. So it's like a second first day of school, and that can be good and bad. The only thing that's different is that you have a little bit of more information this time about what your students need, how the year has been progressing. So you've got some background info going into this second first day and ways that you can utilize it to make things go better this time around. So remember, this might be true not just for the students, might be true for the teachers, might even be true for yourself. Break was not necessarily relaxing and rejuvenating for everyone. And as far as our students go, they may have been in a situation or been in a home situation over the past couple weeks where it wasn't healthy, was maybe toxic, you know, trauma and discord tend to rise during the holiday season. And like I said, that's not necessarily just for students too. And I'm sorry if you are as an adult dealing with something similar to this, but it's very likely that some of our colleagues or our students were not in a very healthy environment for the past couple weeks, and that is going to affect how they respond and get back into the swing of things. So I am very careful about doing things like what did I do over break, or even saying, Did you have a good break? Because sometimes people will just say, your kids will just say, Yeah, that's great when really that's that's not the case and it starts springing up. Bad feelings or bad memories. So things that I kind of say to my students, are you glad to be back when I see them? Because I have hall duty, so I see all 600 of them in some capacity within the first um couple 10, 20 minutes of the school day, or I'll tell them I missed them. Some people just need to hear that they've been missed, that someone was thinking about them. And I have been thinking about quite a few of them, wondering how they're how they're doing. You could also, as a an assignment, a quick assignment or a bell ringer or just a morning work assignment, just have them write you a note or a letter about things that maybe they should know. What like you'd say, if there's anything that happened during your break and you want to share it with me, here's a chance to do it. Be, you know, it's just between you and them, and it'll give you a little bit of insight as to what they're coming back with. So we want our kids to come back to school, and we want them to do the thing because the hardest stuff that we teach is usually this second half of the year. We need their cooperation, we need them to focus, we need them to bring their A game or their B minus game or whatever game they've got. They want to bring their game. But if you want it, you have to teach it as far as going along as far as behavior is concerned. So think about how you want this semester to go. Doesn't mean it will go perfectly, but how would you like things to go? And then assume they know nothing. Assume they know nothing. I mean, not nothing academically, but as far as how you want them to behave, they don't know anything. Assume they have forgotten and they need reprogrammed. So if you want it, like I said, teach it. You have to review the review, the rules, and the expectations very much like it's the first day of school again. They probably have forgotten, or they may have been in a situation where there were no rules or there were no uh time constraints on anything, and it didn't matter when they got things done. Now they're back to reality. So this is a chance to introduce new things, routines, rules that maybe you see were needed uh after the first semester and you want to do it now, now's the time. Do it on the next time, next time you see them. Go ahead, break them in. Doesn't mean you have to be not nice about it, but we can be firm and we can introduce it and we can make it the new expectation. I refresh everything with my students because as an art teacher, I only see them once a week. So I will go I go over how to line up, how you're gonna hand me your work before you leave. I even go over how we label our papers. Now, for me it's labeling because it's projects, but if you do paper pencil work, it's you know, heading, you know, your name, first name, last name, class code. I go over all of that like they've never seen it before. Because some of them might have just forgotten that that's what we do. If you don't want to be too preachy and you don't want to just be up there talking and talking and talking and telling them all the things they look like they're about to fall asleep, you can have them show you. And sometimes that is a good indicator of what they do remember. You say, show me how we line up. Everybody show me how you put your heading on your paper. You know, that way they're they're engaged in it, but you are getting some very important info as to what they remember and if they understand that that's still going to be the expectation going into the second half of the year. Now, we expect some bumps along the way because they are not perfect people, these students. And uh you you can't, but just because it's not gonna be perfect, that doesn't mean we just write off the second half of the year. Things can improve and we can be in control of this situation that kids who like to do their own thing, and well, it's a it's a thing for everybody. Just just know that. I mean, I've got good classroom management after 23 years, but they will try me too. So but it goes back to break may not have been a break, and sometimes we're gonna see behaviors when they come back to school that are because they are letting out the feelings or the distress that they have been under for the past couple weeks without anybody there to uh break up that home life situation. So they're changing gears, they're gonna need some time to get back into a groove, they need their needs met. Some of them probably didn't get a lot to eat or get what they needed to eat over the past couple weeks. And they also need to realize they're somewhere safe again. That their their brains just kind of have to reset to what uh school is, and that school is a safe environment, that their teacher and their classroom is somewhere where they don't have to uh have the same issues that they may have at home. And also, why there might be some bumps that we need to prepare for, you might be getting a new student on the very first day of the second half of the year. I mean, it happens, and that will change your classroom dynamic if it's a kid that is going to interact with your students differently. So all of those things are things that may bump up or make the ride back into the school year a little more interesting than expected. But that's okay. We can we can do it and we can be prepared for be prepared for it. So we're gonna give grace for those things that maybe not are not gonna work out exactly as we like, getting back into a routine, but we're gonna have firm expectations and we're gonna redirect and still expect students to do the things that we wanted them to do prior to break. And the honeymoon period where they're gonna be quiet and listen and go with the flow, we know that's gonna be shorter because they're more familiar with you. Most of them will be more familiar with you. And when they're more familiar, they'll try different things. It happens. So if your students don't have a lot of time to socialize outside of class, now that means they don't have lockers. If they don't change classes, they're just with you all day, you might want to give them time to connect in class through different group activities, time to talk within a group work activity, a structured activity. I am very big into structure, it's always been my thing, even as an art teacher where there's more time to I don't want to say bend the rules because it's there are expectations, but I'm very structured. I can't break it. It's just me. But we can give them time through group activities to to talk and even model how we do certain things in our room, like how we share, how we take turns with uh the supplies, and that will also let you know how things are going to go and also what you need to review. I'm also going to be doing a group work episode in a couple weeks so that you can uh we can talk a little bit more about how to get kids working in groups so that they're doing what they're supposed to do and they're not driving you crazy. But that's an that's a couple weeks away. So I'm not I'm not tripping. I know that those old behaviors that certain kids did before break are going to resurface because they are more comfortable and old habits die hard. We know that. Even with a clean slate, kids are gonna be kids. They're gonna go back and they're gonna interact with each other and things will happen. And like I said, we're gonna be talking a lot about student behavior this season. I've got some great guests coming up and some very good topics that are things that I wish we I would have learned more about when I uh was a classroom teacher and I taught fifth grade. But it's important that we stick to our expectations and stick to the consequences that there are um there is a path. If you do this, this is what happens. Sometimes that's what's missing a lot outside of school with our students. So they need to see that or experience that path. You do this, this happens every time. It's also important that we don't put our emotions into it. And it's very hard to do, it's very hard to not take things personally when a kid doesn't listen to you. I know it happens with me too. But as I like to say, you cannot throw yourself in the pool when they are emotional, when the students are emotional, even when the parents are emotional. If you get emotional too, nobody's holding on to the life preserver. So you have to leave your emotions out of it. Let them, you know, they don't have to like it, but they do have to do it. And as previously stated, this is the second half of the game, and we've got to throw the kids the ball. Meaning, as the school year progresses, we want them to do better. We want them to be more responsible and independent. So regardless of it's academics or if it's behavior, they need to be doing what they need to do to fix it. It's not all on us to fix their problems. We can tell them what they need to do, and we need to expect them to apply that to their behavior or their learning. So romance minister, but uh please give yourself uh grace and space. We don't have to do everything perfectly. And we do I hope you were able to do this during your break, we do need some space between or from school and home and our lives outside of work, even if you don't feel that teaching is work, it is your place of work. But we need some space between there and home so that we can be a whole person. And when we're a whole person, we're a better teacher to our students and can teach them more wholly. So uh it's still the same job. We still have the same expectations and the same issues that we are dealing with in education, but we are the ones that we can change. We have control over ourselves and how we respond and how much we're going to give emotionally to the situation. So choose one good thing that you did for yourself over break. Maybe a habit that you picked up if you did make a resolution. Go you. But try to take at least one good thing or one positive thing that you started doing over break and continue to do that through the new year. It's hard, but it's possible, and it's worth it because it it's important that our teachers are healthy, happy, and whole. So thank you for joining me. We've got a lot of good things we're gonna be talking about here over the next couple weeks as we get into episode five, and I will talk to you next week. Bye-bye. That's all for this episode of the Next Chapter for Teachers Podcast. If you like what you heard, be sure to rate, subscribe, and leave a review. Join us next time when we turn the page to the future of the profession. Until then, remember to be different, but more importantly, be the difference. And I'll see you in the next chapter.