Classroom Resources

7 Great Ways Teachers Use Summer to Get Ready for Fall

Teachers – you did it! Hopefully you are reading this because you made it to summer vacation! Months of freedom and nothing to do are ahead of you (insert eye roll here…)

After you’ve returned from your trip where you’ve shown your students the world (check!), summer hopefully means you have time to recharge AND learn, plan, and get ready for fall. Here are 7 wonderful things teachers can do this summer to prepare for the next school year.

Earn some PDP/CEUs.

The summer months are a great time to focus on the re-certification of your teaching license. Enroll in an online course or a real live one like a Master Class with John Hunter for the World Peace Game!

Play with new apps to try in the classroom.

There are countless educational apps available to teachers to make learning in the classroom more interactive. (Let’s be honest – they are looking at their phones anyway…so…lean in!)  Here are some of our favorite apps that specifically enhance your educational travel experiences. Take some time to download a few and play around with them – you may find one that will aide your classroom goals as well!

Make a connection – or a class full of them.

We learn from each other – whether its a mentor, a peer, or a teacher in another content area who has great ideas about engaging students, differentiation, or behavior management! You can also make connections for next year’s lesson plans. For example, find a teacher in another state or another country and plan to be classroom “pen pals” to learn more about and from each other.

Read.

In between the beach reads, squeeze in a few of our Curriculum & Academics team’s favorites, which include:

• A Framework for Understanding Poverty, by Ruby Payne
• Why Don’t Students Like School, by Daniel T Willingham
• The Call to Teach, by David Hansen
• Teaching Stories, by Robert Coles
• 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching, by Bryan Goodwin and Elizabeth Ross Hubbell
• Experience and Education, by John Dewey
• Make It Stick, by Brown, McDaniel, and Roediger III

Get your inbox in order.

Ok, maybe this sounds awful, but trust us, it can be incredibly fulfilling! Delete old emails, file away great resources, and review all the email lists you’ve signed up for. By the way, if you want to continue to receive email from WorldStrides, be sure to add us to your “whitelist” or “favorites” – we want to continue to be in touch!

Plan some fundraisers for your next educational travel program. 

Take a page from some of our favorite fundraisers in our Complete WorldStrides Fundraising Guide.

Write about your teaching experiences.

Teacher blogs can be hilarious, heartwarming, inspirational, and just gosh darn useful. Do you have a story to share? Write about your best practices, your favorite lesson plans, or the moments when your students touched your life. Writing about your travel experiences with your students is always good reading, and our WorldStrides blog team would love to publish your work. Share it with ourstories@worldstrides.org.  

What is on your teacher “to-do” list this summer?