u/Brief_Efficiency_833

I've been seeing soooo many back to school posts lately where teachers are already feeling exhausted and we've literally just started the new year 😭😭 (I completely understand and relate tho)

I know the beginning can be a really difficult, weird adjustment period when you're getting used to a whole new group of kids and trying to help all those students get into routines/understand expectations ... but I'm curious at what point does it actually start feeling "normal" again LOL

like when do you finally get past the whole "okay what the heck am I doing right now and why is no child listening to me??" phase and start feeling like "alright, I think we've got this y'all ... this is how school is supposed to be" /:

I suppose I'd like to pose this question to all educators (and particularly curious for teachers who've been doing this for a good chunk of time too) how long does it usually take y'all to feel decently settled?? a couple days, couple weeks, a month? Longer??? is there anything that helps you feel like you can easier progress over that hump?

I've only been in a teacher role for a couple years myself now, so I'm still definitely figuring out what the normal timeline for that adjustment even is hahaha and it's been different for me every year so far

also, for anyone having a particularly rough start to this school year, wishing y'alll the best of luck and hoping you hang in there!! 🤞🤞

I feel like teaching phonics + early reading has created a mini archive in my brain that's sole purpose is to store children's book dialogue loool

I think Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems is probably the one seared into my brain the most. I’ve read it with kids like infinite times by this point, so I’ve accidentally memorized an embarrassing amount of it 😭😭 There are certain pages where I don't even have to look at them anymore, my brain just knows exactly what comes next.

and honestly, now that I'm thinking about this more, I probably know a solid chunk of Mo Willems books by heart at this point with how much I’ve read them with and to my students 😂 they're always fan favorites and I'm reading em so often, I could probably do a bunch of Elephant & Piggie dialogues from memory and even read a few pages of the books blindfolded hahahaha

I suppose this is just one of the side effects of reading the same books to kids over and over again, but I never really thought about how much children's literature I've probably accidentally memorized until I had to read the story again yesterday and knew every beat loooool.
This is probably just what happens when you spend enough time reading children's books, I'm sure there are plenty other educators/librarians/parents out there who have a few books unintentionally, permanently etched into their memories too!!

I was surprised when I had already started seeing some back to school posts/discussions like a week or two ago, but now ... the time has come for me too 😅😭

Schools in my district started back up this week, but my after school learning center doesn't start our new semester until this upcoming week. This way the kids have a little time to get used to being back in school first
(as it should be, I'd feel so bad for those poor kids being overwhelmed with new school + new after school classes all in week 1!!!)

So while a lot of y'all are already back in the classroom, or have even been back for a bit now, I'm currently sitting here enjoying one final little week of freedom after finishing my summer session LOOOL

I'll definitely miss how easy summer classes were tbh, but honestly I'm super duper excited to have more students in my classes again and meet all the new kiddos this semester!! ((:

I feel like the Squidward meme of watching SpongeBob and Patrick have fun outside from the inside of his room LOOL. I'm just sitting here waiting for my classes to start already 😭😭😭

Anyway, for those of y'all who have already started back up ... how's it going so far??? 👀🤗 trying to live vicariously through some of you

With the school year officially starting back up (😭😭😭😭) I'm trying to put together a list of good, FUNNY books I can use during some of my early read alouds with my younger students ((:

I'm a phonics + early reading educator working with kids in the the K - 3 age range, and I really like having some books ready that are just genuinely more than anything FUN to read with the kids, especially during those first couple weeks when everybody is still getting comfortable with each other!!

I feel like getting the kids laughing during reading time is such an easy/free way to help them start associating books with actually having a good time, and it helps some of the shyer kids loosen up a little too + it's honestly just fun trying to figure out what kind of humor each student has LOOL
Always a funny start to the class discovering which kids will laugh at literally anything and which ones are sitting there with the most serious straight face imaginable the entire story 🗿

So here I am asking to find out: what children's books have gotten the most and/or biggest laughs out of your kids/students?? I'm especially looking for ones where you can read it aloud to a group of kids and pretty much guarantee at least ONE of em is gonna lose it from laughter lol and hopefully others follow suit

also bonus points if it's somehow a book that actually manages to be funny enough to make you (the adult) laugh or chuckle along with them 😂 I've found this much more rare but it occasionally happens and I always appreciate being able to appreciate the humor in it with the kids too

I'd rly love to hear what y'all recommend!! I'm always trying to add more books to my mental list of noteworthy childrens books lol, and especially right now I'm looking for some that can help make those first few weeks of reading time feel extra fun and less intimidating

On my final two days of teaching summer classes and I genuinely can't believe summer is already almost done 😭😭 time flies when you're having fun I suppose

This was my first time ever teaching during the summer and now I fully understand why people are fans of it ... easy money as they say LOL

I only teach after school classes during the regular school year, so it's not going to be as scary of a transition back for me as it probably is for actual public school teachers since my classes are still pretty small anyway (usually around 10 at MOST) BUUUT I'm definitely gonna miss these teeny tiny summer class sizes and the easy peasy curriculum hahahaha

The last two weeks I've had a class of literally just 3 (three) kids and it has been HEAVEN LOOOL. Even with 1/3 being a chronic misbehavor, I'll take that any day over a full class

yesterday only ONE kid actually showed up for class, and after I finished the lesson and during independent practice I was just sitting there thinking like ... dang I'm really getting paid to do this?? heck yeah 🙌🙌

Most schools in my district start back up this upcoming Tuesday, so summer is officially coming to an end over here sadly. Bout to have to start #EARNING my money again next week LOL, easy money glitch was finite

When do y'all head back?? Are any of you already back in school and teaching already?

I'll tell my students something along the lines of "okay, y'all have about 15 minutes left to finish this!"
and everything will be fine for a literal couple of minutes until one of the students asks
"how much time do we have left?"

sure, fair enough I guess, maybe I unintentionally added a lil extra pressure by mentioning the time and now they want to stay on pace, okay I'll tell them

then somehow no more than 2 minutes later, another kid asks the EXACT same question 😅
then another one ... and another one ... and at least 5 hands will shoot up within that 15 minute span

before I know it I'm basically spending the rest of independent practice time as a human alarm clock giving live updates on the passage of time LOL

I've already tried just not giving a specific amount of time, but then I find I still need some way to communicate when we're moving on/how soon they should be wrapping up etc etc

So, for the teachers who work with younger kids too ... is there actually a way to bring up time without accidentally triggering this phenomenon ?? 😭 or is this just one of those things I'm doomed to accept and serve my role as the living countdown clock forever hahaha

edit: omg yoooo timer recommendation makes me feel like a genuine idiot right now 😭😭😭
sorry should have mentioned I tried timers before and found that sometimes kids get real distracted by them lol so sorry y'all thank you for reminding me timers exist tho!! haha genuinely not being sarcastic, BUT ALSO, are there any better alternatives to timers?? maybe something less visually distracting when up on a big screen?

I'm an educator in phonics + early reading (K - 3 range specifically) for younger kids, and I'm posting because I'm always on the hunt for more quality books to add to my book list/classroom that I can suggest to my students ((:

Currently, I'm specifically asking/looking for books that are truly useful for the subjects and age range I teach! so books that help with things like: recalling letter sounds, early phonemic awareness, practicing sounding words out, building self-confidence while reading, etc etc

I'm really hoping to find books that cover these topics BUT are also GENUINELY FUN stories that make kids want to keep reading and hopefully change any minds that may find books lame LOL

I feel like sometimes (honestly ... imo most of the time) the books that are deemed "really helpful" for, or made for the purpose of, practicing a specific early reading skill are never quite the same books that make a kid think "wait a sec, reading is actually fun and awesome, what a cool story, I want to do this more!!!" 😭😭😭 so I'd love to find more of that sweet spot where they are getting good reading practice yet are not feeling like they're being forced to read a phonics training exercise slyly disguised as a fun book

If you have any books that you've found especially good for this (maybe through teaching and seeing how students respond to them, or parents who've seen their kids enjoy these books while also using them to improve their reading, or librarians too because that's some real book knowledge!!), I'd super appreciate hearing them 🫡
I'm always down to add more books to my list and have some new recommendations ready whenever a student asks me what they should read next or a family asks for book recs to help their child improve/like reading more (:

A near daily occurrence for me teaching the K - 3 age range is getting trapped in unskippable cutscenes of dialogue when a student finds a way to magically transform the most completely ordinary short story about something that happened to them into a whole dang saga 😭😭😭

A student will come up to me excited to tell me about something that should honestly take like ~20 seconds to explain, yet somehow 3 minutes later we're still going in conversation because apparently to understand what happened I needed the full backstory + the backstory to the backstory and also several completely unrelated details that somehow became important along the way LOL

I genuinely think it's soooo funny how they'll retell this entire experience with such confidence the entire time, meanwhile (little do they know), I've been struggling to follow along since the second completely random sentence got thrown into the mix 😅
and by the time I actually realize what's happening, it's already too late and I just accept my fate like welp ... here we go again with another 10 minute near-nonsensical story 😬👍

At this point it'd be much too rude to have them stop or cut them off anyway, and honestly by that point I'm usually getting lowkey invested in how their story ends hahaha

The post I made here yesterday ended up getting waaaay more discussion than I expected tbh!!

(I had asked everyone about the children's books they just don't understand the hype for, which was super fun lol)

and that then got me thinking about how much I'd love to hear the complete opposite side of the spectrum now + it's much more positive this way 🤣🤗

SO what are some children's books that y'all still absolutely adore, even as an adult? or maybe any that you think just deserve more love/recognition/hype than they get now??

It could be something you still genuinely enjoy reading yourself or to your kids, a book you've thought was an absolute masterpiece/banger since childhood haha, or just one that you wish more people talked about and recognized the greatness of!!

I genuinely just wanna hear some of the books y'all think deserve their flowers 💐
I'm always open to learning about more quality children's books to recommend to my students, and sometimes hearing why someone else is a huge fan of a book I don't personally care for actually changes my mind ((:

I've been teaching phonics and early reading for a couple years now, and every now and then I'll finish reading a book during storytime with a class and the kids will be absolutely OBSESSED with it ... meanwhile I'll be sitting there thinking like hmm hold on wait ... maybe I missed something?? lol

Let me make it clear that obviously I understand children's books aren't going to hit the same for me as I am a literal adult, duh 😭😭😭 buuut there def are plenty out there that I do genuinely enjoy and can easily understand why kids love them too

On the other hand, there are those kid favorites where I just cannot rack my brain to understand why/how they're such huge fan favorites LOOL, and some have been popular since I was a kid too!

I won't name any in particular because I don't want to start a war or get attacked for my personal opinions on children's book of all things 😅 but I will say I never let my personal feelings about a book change how I read it to my students!! If they love it, I'm not gonna yuck their yums (:

It'll go both ways too, sometimes I'm reading a book and thinking "wow, now this one is actually really good, a masterpiece :o I would genuinely enjoy this even as an adult!" and the kids are all just kinda like "ehhh that was boring I don't like it" 😂🤣

They are the target audience after all, so clearly they're seeing greatness I'm not hahaha and at the end of the day, the kids are actually the experts in this field (not me) so I won't question their taste

but it did make me curious if other people experience this too when reading with kids, so that's why I'm asking this question!

I've noticed some of my younger students have gotten sooo used to asking for permission that they'll ask for literally any and everything LOL

We'll be in the middle of class and out of nowhere I'll almost always hear questions like "can I drink my water?" ... and like 20 seconds later it's "can I turn the page?" ... 1 more minute after that "can I erase this?" Y'all do not need to be permitted to do any of this!!

This summer session I've got 1 student though who somehow managed to take it to a whole different level. Yesterday he genuinely asked me out loud from across the class if he could raise his hand to ask me a question 🤣🤣🤣

I almost laughed because I genuinely had to process what he just asked me for a second. I was just sitting there thinking like ... wait ... I'm pretty sure you don't need permission to ask for permission

What gets me most though is the irony that he'll ask permission for basically every little thing, but somehow needs absolutely no permission to occasionally interrupt the entire class with these questions .. like ... I appreciate the effort, but I'd honestly rather you just raise your hand first at this point 😭

One of my students guessed I was 43 the other day 😅😭😭 ... that's what made me realize this

and btw I'm literally in my mid 20s LOL and people tell me I look younger all the time too

Afterwards I had the realization that I was literally the exact same way when I was their age though!!
When I was in elementary school, every adult was basically the same age in my head 😂 whether you were 24, 37, 58, or 67, it didn't matter. You were simply just an adult 🧍 lol

Now I'm sitting here realizing I'M one of those adults to these kids, even though I still get carded every single time I go somewhere they ask for it hahaha

I honestly think I could convince some of these kids I was around when they invented the first car or something if I really committed to the bit 🤣

One unexpected perk of never growing out of Pokemon has been how often it ends up giving me something in common with some students 😂

Every now and then, I'll notice a kid wearing a Pokemon shirt, or they'll randomly bring it up before/during/after class, and the second I casually mention that I still like Pokemon too ...
it's like the floodgates open 🌊🌊

Suddenly I'm hearing all about their favorite Pokemon, whichever game they're currently playing, the newest cards they pulled, what pokestops are near them, any and all of it hahaha

and honestly I don't mind it one bit!! It's become one of my favorite little icebreakers, and I think it's neat how one random, genuine shared interest can make it much easier to find common ground with a student (:

It also reminds me that students can sometimes forget teachers have hobbies too 😭😭😭Sometimes I think they just assume we magically appear in the classroom every morning and disappear by the time the moon falls lmaooo

One of the coolest parts of teaching for me has honestly been being able to watch certain students completely change and evolve over time ((:

Like for example, I'll occasionally have a student who initially rarely ever talks, keeps to themselves, and doesn't seem comfortable being in class yet. and then a couple weeks or months later, they're raising their hand often, joking around and having fun with classmates, and actually coming to class looking excited to be there!!!

or I'll have the student who decides one day that I'm the "strict teacher" because I made them finish their assigned work and follow basic everyday classroom rules 😅🤣😭
Fast forward after a week or two of learning with me, and suddenly they're now running up to class early to tell me about their weekend before we start class or even being disappointed when our classes end lol

Obviously I do love seeing students improve academically (I mean that is our main job after all hahaha), buuuut seeing those little personality/confidence changes over time honestly gets me just as excited ... if not even more 🥲 ... sometimes

Remembering that being a teacher isn't ONLY about teaching academics and watching students grow as people + become more confident in themselves always reminds me why I love this job so so much (':

Always makes me get mini imposter syndrome when students kinda think all teachers are experts on every single topic ever and can answer literally any question 😭 😭

I'll be teaching a low level reading class and get random unrelated questions to identify specific birds, predict the weather tomorrow, explain why things are named what they are named, answer the most random loosely based science-y questions, etc, etc literally anything and everything under the sun lmao

Sometimes I dang near feel like a fraud when I gotta be honest and just say "yeaa you know what, sadly I am not an expert on this subject" and then end up screensharing the Google search classwide for us to all figure it out and learn together lol

I wish I had that super intellect students assume we have sometimes 🤓 if my brain was just a giant encyclopedia bank filled with every single important or super niche fact they've ever been curious about, I'd be an absolute superteacher 🦸

I've got a student in my summer classes rn whose backpack is filled with an iPad, snacks, and a different assortment of toys on the daily lol

Normally, he's pretty well behaved about it and doesn't use any of it during class! buuut funnily enough, yesterday he somehow forgot to bring the ONE and only packet of work we've been using literally every single day of the summer session in his backpack ... but of course sure enough, he had his iPad, snacks, and toys though 😭😭

he asked me to check his backpack to help him look for the packet, and it felt like opening Pandora's Box of every child's favorite distractions and goodies LOOOL the kid was set with like 5 diff Lightning Mcqueen toys
... yet alas, no packet to be found /:

It genuinely makes me wonder sometimes what is actually going on while some of these backpacks are getting packed before school 😂 like are his parents aware he's bringing all this stuff, or is he somehow sneaking everything in there before he leaves?? either way it's comedy to me tbh

My favorite part of the whole class though was that a little bit later (after I reprinted the pages we were working on for him) he came up and asked if I could charge his iPad for him 🤣🤣🤣

bud . I'm pretty sure you're not even supposed to HAVE an iPad at summer school in the first place smh, worry about charging up your math packet instead or something 🤷

I've realized younger kids all seem to think they're absolute masterminds at stealth and sneakiness whenever they're trying to stall for time and hide their intentions about it LOL

You'll hand out an assignment and all of a sudden someone desperately needs to sharpen what is already the world's sharpest pencil. Another kid will suddenly remember they're dying of thirst and take their sweet time refilling the water only to slowly take one tiny sip. Immediate bathroom break requests. Someone else spends the next 3 min slowly searching through their backpack like they're on an archaeological dig looking for one worksheet ... just to not even have it 😭😭

Some of my personal favorites (due to sheer ridiculousness and lack of subtlety) gotta be: dropping a pencil MULTIPLE times just to buy themselves a couple extra seconds picking it back up, erasing the exact same spot on the paper over and over again, or randomly raising a hand to ask something completely unrelated

I honestly respect the effort though!! hahaha my only gripe is sometimes it feels like they accidentally put more effort into trying to avoid the assignment than it would've taken to just do the assignment itself 🙂‍↔️

I agreed to tutor a couple students + teach a class over both days of the weekend for the first time ever ... and yup I can confidently say I don't think I'll ever be doing that again LOL 😭😭😭

honestly racking my brain as to why I even agreed to it in the first place, especially considering my commute is a bit of a push. I've been asked to tutor/teach on many weekends before and said no every single time lol so idk what possessed me to finally give in and say sure this time, but I will never fall for that trick again 🤣

Finishing work around 2 PM was pretty nice, and the teaching itself went nice and smooth!! but the rest of the weekend just felt sooo off. It felt like I never actually had a weekend at all smh before I knew it, it was already Sunday night and time to get ready for Monday's summer school classes /:
shoutout to anyone who works weekends at any job, I have a newfound respect for it

Maybe this is just me getting older lol but losing my only two days/week where I don't HAVE to be anywhere or do anything felt more unfortunate than ever
I guess doing absolutely nothing for 2 days in a row is much more valuable to me than I realized 😅

Ran one of my classes a little out of order today (compared to our usual routine of homework review → lesson → independent practice) and the classroom felt like that SpongeBob scene where all the tiny SpongeBobs are running around inside his brain office while everything catches on fire for the first like 15 min till everybody got adjusted 😭😭

It wasn't a huge change, literally just switching up the order of what we do, but I could tell they were all confused and thrown off by it!!

but to be fair tho... I'm honestly the exact same way lol 😅 I have my own little routines every day, and whenever my plans don't go as planned, I feel like everything gets out of whack and it can throw off my entire mood sometimes smh

Guess I'll be trying a little harder to stick to our usual routine from now on ... for everybody's sake hahaha

Their genuine excitement over every single little thing LOL

Today I told my class we'd be able to spend some time reading on Epic, and they reacted like it was Christmas in July and they were all just given brand new Nintendo Switches hahaha like literal cheers throughout the classroom and the whole time I'm just standing there thinking ... "Now y'all do remember this is a reading app right ...?" 🤣😭😭

Luckily they did, and they were still just as excited nonetheless!! Exactly like they are about stickers, stamps, ANY type of game time, and about a million other random little things
and trust me, I have NO complaints about this! I'll happily take students getting a little extra rowdily excited to read over the opposite any day of the week.

Their excitement/appreciation for these little things is honestly sooo wholesome, and always gives me even more energy to teach them the best I can too ((: