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This week, to help you get ready for the upcoming school year, Education World takes you on a virtual tour of some of our site's most popular features. Here you'll find pages (and pages and pages!) of resources to help you set up and decorate your classroom, create "getting to know you" letters, name tags, and icebreakers, plan new lessons, locate effective worksheets, keep current on education news and issues, and much, much more. Included: Twenty Education World resources to take you from the first day of school to the last.

"Where did the summer go? School can't be starting yet. I'm not ready!"

Has the end of summer caught you unaware? Do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking of all the things you still have to do to get ready for the first days of the new school year? Are you having trouble finding the resources you need to sign off on your back-to-school 'to do' list? Don't panic! Education World can help. All you have to do is complete the tasks on the checklist below:

1. Write and mail family welcome letter.
2. Determine best room arrangement.
3. Decorate bulletin boards.
4. Create student nametags.
5. Decide on class rules and determine associated rewards and consequences, or locate rule-writing activity for the first day of school.
6. Copy Quote of the Day onto chalkboard.
7. Select icebreaker activity.
8. Rehearse telling a tension relieving Joke of the Day.
9. Prepare an activity for assessing beginning writing skills.
10. Print a monthly calendar for each student, and choose a calendar activity.
11. Visit the school Web site, and then investigate how to create a classroom Web site that will facilitate school/home communication.
12. Prepare to introduce students to the Web by locating an appropriate back-to-school scavenger hunt.
13. Prepare a teaching master to use to assess beginning math skills.
14. Sign up for an education newsletter.
15. Find out how No Child Left Behind affects educators.
16. Select an appropriate lesson plan and tie it to national education standards.
17. Get ready to facilitate technology integration by locating 10 educationally valuable Web sites and learning at least one new technology skill.
18. Browse student records and then determine strategies for dealing with problem behaviors.
19. Prepare for awkward transitions by keeping handy a selection of 5-Minute Fillers.
20. Check back throughout the month of August to explore such Education World features as The Reading Room, Bulletin Boards That Teach, Reader's Theater scripts and teacher guides, Backpack-tivities, News to Use, In a Sub's Shoes, Fact Monster searches, Newsletters R Us, columnists Emma McDonald, Gina Barreca, and much, much more.

Article by Linda Starr
Education World®
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