What I Learned in My First Year of Teaching

 I have been a substitute teacher for over 10 years, and have taught 3rd grade for one year. There are many lessons I learned in my first, and so far, only year of teaching. Here I wish to share those lessons and my experiences. Many of these lessons may mirror other people's experiences in the classroom.

1. Don't buy too many workbooks for extra work. 
• I spent a lot of money in the school supply store on books full of activities, word searches, puzzles, and other activities to use in the classroom. On Sundays, I spent countless hours sitting at a copy machine, to the point of sometimes being mistaken for an employee at Staples. I also bought my own black and white laser printer to use at home, which saved me a lot on my printing costs. Now as an after-school tutor I do not have as much money to spend, and so I have found that there are many great resources available online. Some websites are free, while others may require a monthly subscription fee. With a good laser printer, I can make as many copies as I need cheaper than it would cost to buy a workbook and use the copy machine. 
• There are many other great resources online. Some resources I currently use for tutoring include:
• Free Math Worksheets
• Free Printable Worksheets for Preschool through Sixth Grade
• Reading A-Z - Samples
• Super Teacher Worksheets - Printable Worksheets
• Note: I did say don't buy "too many workbooks" because you will not always be able to find what you need online, so you may have to pick up a workbook or two. One great resource I found was pre-made "Folder Centers" which I used in my regular classroom, and continue to use in my tutoring. 
2. Have a "school-free" day or night off.
• As a first year teacher, I often spent Saturday and Sunday working on lesson plans for the week. So, I never had a full day off during the week. I made it a point to at least spend my Friday nights doing something that is not school or teaching-related. Often this meant just relaxing at home and playing video games; my favorite being "Endless Ocean" for the Nintendo Wii, which is a relaxation-type game that allowed me to dive down in the ocean, see different sea creatures or sometimes just sit on the deck on watch the sun. The point is to make some time completely away from anything school or education-related. 
3. Speak to everyone and be willing to share ideas.
• I taught in a very small school which only had 1-2 teachers per grade and housed grades K-8. I had an assigned mentor teacher for my BTSA training, however I made it a point to talk to every teacher on campus. I got some great teaching and management tips from several teachers, and if anyone asked for anything I gladly shared what I could.
4. Prioritize your time.
• It can be very daunting as a first-year teacher to figure out what is most important. I often worked in my classroom for an extra two to three hours a day every day during the first semester. Often it was just me and the janitors still at the school at 5:00 p.m. By the second semester, I had certain routines figured out and was able to use my preparation and planning time more efficiently.
5. Take and borrow ideas from ANYWHERE.
• I know the old maxim of teaching is "beg, borrow, steal" ideas, and this proved true for me in my first year of teaching. In my first year of teaching, I let the after-school program use my classroom. Once, a student from the after-school program left one of their worksheets in my room. I wasn't sure if it was classwork or work assigned by the after-school teachers, but I liked it so much that I used MS Word to copy the worksheet. I try as much as possible to find resources to use. If what I find doesn't fit exactly what I need, I will use MS Word to modify the resource to suit my teaching purposes. I have also used MS Word to create original worksheets. 
6. Create resources as you need them.
• During a workshop, I received a great tip on creating resource binders by unit for all the support materials in my English-Language Arts curriculum. By combing the support materials from several different books into one binder I was able to find all of the extra worksheets and activities for a particular unit in one place. I created several binders for units I had already taught, and which I was hoping to use the following year. That did not happen. I spent money on binders I did not end up using. While the resource binder is a good tip that I plan to use in the future, I will only create the binders when I need them. I wasted valuable time and money created materials I did not use.