Dear [...],
I'm so glad you reached out! I hear you, and it's a crazy and surreal feeling to start your first year of teaching. The biggest thing I can share is to know that everything you are feeling--the nervousness, the worry, the doubt, and sense of uncertainty--is all very normal! This is what every new teacher feels, and on the first day, even most veteran teachers feel it.
Once the students arrive, and you get a few weeks under your belt, a rhythm starts. But during your first year, it will still feel hard. You'll make mistakes, and you'll feel uncertain often. This is okay. This is part of the process of learning to teach.
As far as preparing curriculum and strategies for the classroom, I would say to try to plan activities that don't make you the center for the whole duration of class. If you plan a lot where you have to be constantly talking and leading, you will get exhausted, and also the kids will start to struggle with behavior. They won't be able to sit and focus on you for long periods on and on, so be sure to plan in ways for them to connect with each other and to move around the room. Remember things like CHALK TALK from Assessment class, where students can get up, record ideas and responses on large posters or white boards around the room. Use that! Use activities that help students get in small groups and think through problems. I would suggest picking groups, so that students don't always just go right to friends, and so that the same kids aren't always left out.
Come up with some fun challenges for students to work on. Things like: "If you were a group of senators in the US Senate, which 10 laws would you add to our country right now? And why? In the groups of four that I give you, talk about your ideas, then come up with your list and with one solid reason why for each law you create." You can then give students 45 minutes to talk, create their laws, maybe a second 45 minutes the next day, and then they can hang their posters with their laws around the room. Students can then do a GALLERY WALK to explore each other's posters, and then you can lead a discussion afterwards about what everyone noticed--prompting deep analysis and reflection.
You might do an activity like this after you briefly explore some real laws--or a discussion of unjust laws in our country's past, and how to create new laws that ARE just.
A strategy like this allows students to learn, but also doesn't put you in the spotlight for long, long periods of time, allowing you to connect with kids in small groups, and also allowing kids to do the thinking and learning!
The more you can utilize strategies like this, the more fun you and the kids will have, and the more energized you will feel!
Also remember that the words you say to students matter, and you have the power to encourage them, inspire them, and let them know that you SEE them and you CARE about them. You'll show them this by all the little things you do every day--making eye contact, responding to their joy about a movie they saw, a soccer practice they had, or a picture they drew.
What students remember--long after they will have had you as a teacher--are these things. They'll remember whether your eyes opened wide when they told you a story. They'll remember whether you delighted in them, and whether you allowed yourself to be childlike enough to be amazed at what they'll say and do.
Be delighted.
Be amazed.
This matters far more than anything else you'll ever do in the classroom.
And one last thing: remember that they are going to try their best. On the surface, it might not look like that, but they'll also be hiding a lot of fears, a lot of worries about not being cool enough, smart enough, loved enough. Don't always take their surface-level reactions as core-level judgments of you or what you do. See deeper. Explore farther.
Keep reaching out, and know that I'm here for you, and others are too. Never hesitate to ask away--you are not alone!
Peace, and rock on,
Professor R
