Educators welcoming students back after a two-week holiday break face twin challenges of re-acclimating them to academic routines while ensuring that lessons learned before Christmas haven’t been forgotten.
At Anderson Elementary School, administrators said the focus Tuesday — students’ first day back following a snow day Monday — was on reacquainting them with the everyday habits that allow class time to be used efficiently.
“We walked through our procedures again, just reminding them of what our expectations are in the classroom and throughout the school,” said Sean Hanley, a kindergarten teacher at Anderson Elementary. “It’s just reminding them (of) what is expected and practicing those things.”
Hanley spoke while his class of about a dozen kindergartners spent time at indoor recess, with some students preparing an imaginary meal with a small kitchen set and others building small structures with wooden blocks.
He said he’s built more breaks into his class schedule than usual during the first few days back, in part to accommodate any fatigue students might be feeling from altered sleep schedules during their vacation.
“Their stamina has gone down in the last two weeks,” Hanley said. “We spent the whole first semester kind of growing the stamina and learning how to be at school, and then the two-week break kind of brings that stamina back down.
“We need to be more patient with them so they can get used to another full day of school.”
Other teachers said the day would be about building a sense of enthusiasm among their students that would hopefully engender momentum for the weeks ahead.
“We want to have them excited about being back,” said Stephanie Salazar, a fourth-grade teacher at Anderson Elementary. “We don’t want to come in and just drown them with a bunch of work to begin with, but to do some fun things.”
Salazar said she had spent the morning with her students sharing activities they had done with their families over Christmas break. They also did reading assignments in small groups, along with some movement exercises to help keep the mood light.
Those things, she said, “help me know if they’ve lost some things and need to work on them.”
Anderson Elementary Principal Mark Hodson said that behavioral issues sometimes crop up during the first few days after a break, but the extra day, plus a two-hour delay Tuesday, provided a sense of easing back into routines that helped the rest of the school day run smoothly.
“We’ve had zero referrals in the office so far,” he said. “If somebody’s struggling, we’d like to give them a little time out in the office and try to reinforce what they need to be doing in class. ... The students who are doing the right thing, they need to have a break from that child who might be acting out.”