Welcome to Our Classroom

A new class arrives not knowing where anything is. The board answers the questions they would otherwise ask one at a time, so the first hour is spent teaching rather than directing.

Students will be able to:

• Find their own name on the display
• Name the class routine for the start and end of the day
• Say where to put finished work and where to find supplies

Black and white prints as clean line art rather than a greyed-out copy of the colour version, so the class can colour it in. The preview above changes with this setting.

Pages

19

Colour pages

6

Black & white

13

Paper

• White: 19 sheets — Everything in the print pack
• Yellow: 4 sheets — Greeting letters
• Green: 3 sheets — Mounting
• Blue: 2 sheets — Second colour for the tag grid

What is in the pack

• Title letters — your greeting — 3 sheets, black and white

  W · E · L · C · O · M · and 1 more

  Customise the greeting before you download and the letters regenerate to match.

• Class and teacher heading — 2 sheets, colour

  Welcome to our classroom · Class name strip · Teacher name strip

  Type the class and teacher name into the customise panel and these print filled in.

• Name tags — 6 sheets, black and white

  Blank name tag 1 · Blank name tag 2 · Blank name tag 3 · Blank name tag 4 · Blank name tag 5 · Blank name tag 6 · and 30 more

• First-day cards — 2 sheets, colour

  Our day — arrival, register, lessons, break, lunch, home time. · Class rules — the three or four you will actually enforce. · Where things go — finished work, books, bags, spare pencils. · Who to ask — your name, the teaching assistant, the student helper of the week.

• Pencil border strip — 1 sheet, colour

  Repeating pencil strip

• Helper of the week pocket — 2 sheets, black and white

  Helper of the week frame · Blank name slips · Pocket template

Change the title and the printable letters regenerate to match it.

1. 1

   Step 1 — Customise before you print

   Type your class name and your own name into the customise panel on this page. The greeting, the class strip and the teacher strip all print filled in, so you are not writing thirty things by hand.

2. 2

   Step 2 — Prepare the background

   Cover the board in a warm, plain colour. This is the first thing the class sees, so keep it calm.

3. 3

   Step 3 — Add the greeting

   Run the greeting across the top. If your wording is long, put WELCOME TO OUR on the first line and CLASSROOM beneath it.

4. 4

   Step 4 — Write the name tags

   Fill in one tag per child before you fix any of them. Writing them on the board is how you end up with a crooked grid.

5. 5

   Step 5 — Lay out the name grid

   Arrange the tags in even rows in the middle of the board, leaving two gaps for children who join later. Alphabetical order means a child can find their own name without help.

6. 6

   Step 6 — Add the four first-day cards

   Run them along the bottom in this order: Our day, Class rules, Where things go, Who to ask. That is the order a new student wants them in.

7. 7

   Step 7 — Finish the border and pocket

   Add the pencil border and staple the helper-of-the-week pocket where you will remember to change it.