Practical Advice for the Upcoming School Year: What I Learned As a Mom and 3rd Grade Teacher
The counter in my kitchen is covered in pencil shavings, a half-eaten cheddar cracker, and a stack of folders this week. One pile is for my 3rd grade classroom, the other is for my son’s first week of 7th grade. My phone pinged an hour ago from my neighbor Sarah, whose oldest is starting kindergarten next week. Her text read: “I’ve bought three different packs of composition notebooks and I still don’t think I have the right ones. What if he can’t open his lunch box by himself? What if I forget to label his hat and he loses it forever?” I laughed, because I’ve been that person.
Five years ago, when my oldest started kindergarten, I spent $150 on back-to-school clothes that she wore twice before announcing she only wanted to wear graphic leggings. I labeled every single pencil with a sharpie, even the 24-pack of Crayola that ended up half gone by the end of the first week. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. every day that first week, rechecking the lunch box to make sure I included a napkin, and cried in my car after drop off for three days straight. Now, as both a teacher and a parent, I’ve stopped doing all that extra stuff, and the school year goes just fine—better, actually.
Sarah came over 20 minutes after her text, I gave her two extra plain composition notebooks I had left over from last year, we poured iced tea, and I told her the small things I’ve picked up that make the start of the year way less stressful.
First, leave the fancy new stuff at home for the first month. When my daughter got a $30 custom Hydro Flask for her birthday before 2nd grade, I sent it to school on day one, and she lost it by lunch. We tore the whole classroom apart, checked the lost and found three times, never found it. She cried for 20 minutes that night, and I cried a little over the money. Now I tell everyone: buy the fancy water bottle, the cool new backpack, the character lunch box your kid begged for. Let them use it every afternoon after school, carry it around the house, show it to all their friends. Wait until they’ve settled into their routine of checking their bag before they leave school, then send it in. Most lost items the first week are from kids being excited and distracted, not careless. The old beat-up one from last year works just fine while they get their bearings. Also, don’t stress about matching the supply list exactly. I ask for blue pocket folders in my class, and I’ve never turned away a red one. The supply list is just a suggestion, not a rule.
Next, do a 10-minute morning practice run three days before school starts, not two weeks before, not the morning of. Last year Sarah told me she did a full practice run of the whole day back in July, and by the time school rolled around, everyone had forgotten what they practiced. 10 minutes is all you need. The night before your practice run, put the backpack by the front door. Set the alarm for the same time it will go off during school. Everyone gets up, puts on their shoes, walks to where you leave the car or wait for the bus, and then you go back inside and eat breakfast. That’s it. When we did this with my son two years ago, we realized he takes nine minutes just to find his left shoe every morning. So now we keep a pair of school-only shoes by the front door, no more hunting around the house when we’re already running late. It’s a tiny change that cuts 10 minutes off our morning every day.
Then, change the question you ask after school. Stop asking “did you make any friends?” or “how was your first day?” Most kids will just say “fine” or “nothing” because those big questions are overwhelming. I had a parent come to me last September, upset that her son wouldn’t talk to her about school at all. I told her to ask “what was the silliest thing that happened today?” instead. She texted me the next day saying he rambled for 15 minutes about the kid who put a goldfish cracker up his nose in circle time. It works because it’s low-stakes, it doesn’t put pressure on them to have a big “good” day. Also, wait 48 hours before you email the teacher about a small problem. Last year, a mom emailed me on the second day of school saying her son’s desk was wobbly and he couldn’t work. I was getting ready to swap it that afternoon, but by the next day the kid had propped it up with a spare eraser and was perfectly happy. If I’d swapped it right away, he never would have figured that out himself. Most small problems work themselves out in a couple days.
Finally, for you: Plan one small, low-effort thing for yourself right after drop off on the first day. You don’t have to go get a fancy coffee with friends if you don’t want to, you don’t have to go home and clean the house or cross off your to-do list. I keep a glazed donut from my favorite bakery in my car, and I eat it in the parking lot before I head into my classroom. Last year, after Sarah dropped off her son for his first day of kindergarten, she went home, put on sweatpants, and ate a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream while watching an old reality show on Netflix, and that was exactly what she needed. It’s okay to not be productive that day. It’s okay to just breathe.
We walked Sarah out to her car a little while ago, and she was already less stressed, clutching her two free composition notebooks. This year, I still have a pile of unlabeled pencils for my classroom, my son still hasn’t picked out his first day outfit, and I’m 90% sure I’ll forget to pack his snack at least once the first week. Nothing about the start of the year is ever perfect, and that’s okay. We don’t need it to be. We just need to show up, with extra notebooks and a snack stashed somewhere, and that’s enough.
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