Customer Reviews

First-Year Teacher's Survival Kit: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools & Activities for Meeting the Challenges of Each School Day

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I found this book way more helpful than Harry Wong's The First Days of School. The First-Year Teacher's Survival Kit has tons of useful information and lots of great checklists -- like the one that lists things to do 1 month before school starts; 2 weeks before; 1 week, etc. As a career changer who does not have an education degree, I thought the information in this book was clear, direct, and just what I was looking for.

I am a third year teacher. When I was a student teacher I found this book, and it helped me tremendously! When I was awarded my first teaching career I unfortunately lost the book in all the moving that I had to do so I bought it again and reviewed some things in the book. Then I moved back to my home city. Unfortunately, I lived in an area that was devasted by Hurricane Katrina, and I lost the book again so now I am buying it a third time.
I love the book enough to buy it 3 times and I would buy it a fourth if I had to. I love the way the author explains things. When I first started teaching, I was horrible with organization, but the author has made me a pro at it.
I think this should be a must have for any new teacher, and for a school district to buy for their first timers.

I gained an enormous amount of insight, strategies and techniques from this book. As a student who is about to start her teaching internship, I really liked this book. It involved classroom management, classroom planning, dealing with administration and parents as well as making time for your personal life. This is one of the most comprehensive resources I've seen so far. I highly recommend it.

I purchased this book along with Wong's First Days of School, and I actually prefer this survival guide. I am a career-changer, currently enrolled in a Master's program, and I am going to be teaching my first class this fall. In grad school I've learned content, content, content and some pedagogy, but nothing about the day to day activities and challenges that I am going to face as a first year teacher! I felt completely clueless about what to expect and what I should be doing to prepare myself. (And I didn't want to wait until the first day of school to find out!) This book has provided invaluable guidance. It has worksheets, self-quizzes and a lot of suggestions that have helped me build confidence and gain a little better clue as to what I should be expecting. If you have been teaching for a while, a lot of it may appear to be common sense, but for those of us new to the profession, it has a lot of great tips and solid common sense suggestions that I have found extremely helpful.

This book has been helpful for the new teachers I mentor, and for *me*. It's overflowing with practical and immediately useable ideas and activities. One of my mentees didn't want to give it back to me--I had to buy another for my own use. :) These are not necessarily novel ideas, but the sections are comprehensive. As an experienced and successful teacher, I found this book ideal for trying out some new strategies and especially for remembering others that I hadn't tried for a while. New teachers I worked with found strategies they were comfortable with--and the assurance that need to use different strategies with different students is normal for ALL teachers.

This is a great book for new teachers who want concreted examples and ways of doing things. There are reproducible pages in every chapter, and many of them are ideal for elementary and high school. This book is a definate must for teacher's who want a guide that really goes over everything and gives concrete pages to reproduce! This book takes you step by step including a checklist of important questions to have answered before you walk into the door. There are so many great ideas in here, you have to check it out for yourself!

Julia Thompson has provided an excellent book for both beginning teachers and veterans looking to improve practice. She is both philisophical and practical and I'm going to give this book as a gift to all of my beginning teacher friends! I've read many similar books and this one is the best yet!

I purchased this book to help me prepare for my first year, and I love it. I find that while the famous "First Days of School" is motivating and inspirational, "Survival Kit" is more practically useful. It has lists for many occasions which I find easy to use and very helpful. Ideas and topics I might never think of and those I've thought of and forgotten are both here, and it's great to have them together at my fingertips in one reference. I believe this is an essential resource for a new teacher at any grade level.

I bought this book just days before starting my first teaching job, and it really helped me to be prepared for the first day, and I'm sure I will refer to it throughout the year. I am an elemntary music teacher and the book is really geared toward classroom teachers, but it was still helpful.

Overall, I found this book helpful for a first-time teacher. I recently returned to reaching after a 10 year career in the Arts, and was overhelmed by how things had changed. This book does a pretty good job of laying out what you need to do and know to make it as a first year teacher.

It won't necessarily make you a better teacher (only practice can do that), but it can make an impact in your life by letting you realize that a lot of others have been through this before.