Help! Rosh Hashana is September 11th this year – How am I going to get all my chagim projects done?!
The first two weeks of school are always grueling – getting back into the flow of things, setting up expectations and routines, getting to know the kids in your room, communicating with parents, perhaps acclimating to a new classroom or teacher pairing. So exactly HOW are you planning to also get those projects done?!?
I do wonder what teachers’ plans are with Yom Tov coming so early in the school year. Maybe you’re planning to do all your regular projects, with no plan other than operating on just a few hours of sleep a night and buying takeout for Yom Tov. Or maybe you’re planning to do fewer projects or less elaborate projects. Or maybe even NO projects (gasp!).
Whatever you decide to do, I’m here for it, as long as you also remember that these first two weeks of school are crucial for so much more than Yom Tov projects. While we all know that some parents put a lot of emphasis on their child’s school projects, maybe even going so far as to assume that great projects equate with great teachers, it’s up to you to help parents understand what the beginning (and middle and end) of the school year is really about. You can do this by sharing explicitly in your back to school parent orientation or back to school parent meetings that you plan to spend AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE connecting with their child, getting to know their child, helping their child feel safe and secure in your classroom, and setting up all the children in your room for success this school year. If this means less or no projects, be clear about this from the get-go and get parents excited about the quality of care you plan to offer their child starting as soon as the first day of school.
The parents may not know it, but you’ll have a major head start on heading off behavior challenges and proactively supporting their child’s needs by spending time engaged with them, connecting with them, and directly supporting them, from Day 1.
If you decide to also do projects, here are some ideas for reducing stress and increasing child enjoyment and ownership of projects (something you can also share about with parents). Rather than providing a single model of what projects should look like when completed, provide multiple different models or no models at all so that the children can create their own unique projects without having the stress of trying to replicate a perfect model. This could also mean less work in terms of ensuring that all projects look just right. It will also likely result in more unique projects that really reflect the children who made them. You can share a single line with parents on the back of the project about how the child was unique in how they created the project. For example, you could write that Joey was careful to put lots of glue on his project to make sure things really stuck. Or that Evie enjoyed picking lots of colorful items for her project. In fact, when the projects are completed, there may be no need for names on them and you may know a whole lot more about each child than you did previously. If framed in this context, parents will hopefully come to appreciate how much you value their child as a unique individual and how much you already know about their child just in the first two weeks of school.
It will take confidence to pull this off and I hope that you’ll have the confidence this school year to spend the first two weeks of school getting to really know the children in your classroom, proactively supporting them as they navigate a new beginning, and helping them to love you and love school as much as you’ll ultimately love them.
Wishing you all a great start to a great school year!!.