Often, the excitement teachers and students feel when it’s the end of a school year and time to take a break turns into anxiety and anticipation when the holidays are almost over. Time flies! Let’s make time for adequate preparation in order to start off a brand new school year on the right foot.

As a MAD-teacher, in your preparation for the upcoming school year, you must factor in preparing to use MAD-learn in your the classroom, maximizing the use of the curriculum, as well as finding ways of keeping students actively engaged. For most teachers, planning ahead is crucial because this ensures that every moment in the classroom is geared towards keeping students active and engaged. In a teacher’s world, there is usually no such thing as planning enough. The overall success in the classroom is dependent on going above and beyond in getting lessons and activities ready.

When creating a pre-planning back to school checklist, remember to:

• Include  double checking with your school to ensure that you and your students have access to the MAD-learn platform on your computers.
• If possible, test it out and contact success@mad-learn.com if you run into any issues. Creating this checklist ahead  of time will not only help in identifying all classroom responsibilities but also prompt thinking about and preparing to tackle every major detail.
• Make it a point to mark off each task when it is completed. It is also important to reach out to your school to find out which classroom supplies and materials will be provided to you.
• Maximize the advantage of each item you can receive for free and prepare for those you may need to get on your own all year round such as folders, staples, pens, paper, pencils and the like.

Whether the MAD-learn curriculum will be treated as a core subject or an elective in your school, the MAD-learn team has you covered with a set of guidelines to suit your class structure. In addition to our curriculum, gathering brainstormed ideas from your students in creating your classroom policies and procedures will facilitate order in the classroom and make your students feel like their opinions count. Getting parents involved by sending home back-to-school student welcome letters which boasts of the amazing apps students will be creating with MAD-learn is likely to get them excited and have something to look forward to from their kids in the course of the school year.

Keeping in mind that you will be spending a good portion of your day in the classroom for the duration of the school year, planning ahead for your “home away from home” could be extremely beneficial in keeping you focused and on track.