Being a new teacher is both very exciting and terrifying! There are so many new things to learn but you’ve finally got your very own classroom to make our own!

Although teaching math during your first year presents is own set of unique challenges, I’ve got 5 tips below that will help you to make it a great year!

Don’t follow the textbook blindly

In my teaching career, I have had access to a TON of textbooks and I can tell you that NONE of them have 100% aligned to my state’s standards. There are some that are better than others, but I have never once been able to teach from a textbook all year.

Are textbooks bad? No. Most textbooks have authors who have been in education for many years and use research-backed practices. What I’m saying is to not simply teach your textbook “cover to cover” and expect that your students will get everything they need.

Where do you start if you can’t fully rely on your textbook? You’ve got to get to know your standards! This includes dissecting the standards, exploring unpacking documents, and choosing materials that align to your standards.

Want to get your hands on some FREE materials that were created to align to the 4th and 5th grade Common Core Standards? Grab your FREE sample of my MEGA Resource line right here.

Make your mistakes teachable moments

I can’t tell you how many times I have solved a math problem completely wrong in front of students! Or how often they’ve pointed out my mistakes to me. When I was a new teacher, I would sometimes get very defensive about these mistakes, but that was definitely a… MISTAKE! 😉

Here’s the thing–students are going to make countless mistakes when they’re learning math and need to know what to do when they make a mistake. When YOU make a mistake in front of them, that provides the perfect opportunity to model:

• Checking your work in math
• Determining the reasonableness of an answer
• How to have a great attitude in math!

So take advantage of those mistakes and use them as teachable moments!

Use those manipulatives

I remember being a new teacher and arriving at my first classroom to find bins of math manipulatives that I had NO CLUE what to do with. Even once I learned a few ways to use some of them, I was still too afraid to use them! I thought they were such a pain to get out and the students wouldn’t know what to do with them.

But do you want to know how the students will know how to use them? By YOU modeling how to use them! So don’t be scared–bust out those math manipulatives and use them ALL THE TIME!

Make math fun

I completely believe that math lends itself to having fun more than most subjects (I might be biased)! Students love playing number games and doing interactive activities in math!

Making math fun can be as simple as:

• Letting students roll dice to create the numbers in a math problem
• Putting up task cards around the room and having students find all of them
• Use digital math centers to give students a chance to “play” while doing math
• Find a math escape room to have students solve clues while they’re solving math problems

Don’t try to do it all

Being a new teacher is very overwhelming. Your job description is the same as a teacher who has been around for 20 years but you don’t have the same experience as her! Although, on paper, you might have the same job, NO ONE expects you to do it all!

There are so many standards to learn, classroom management strategies to figure out, and relationships to create with students. Don’t burn yourself out trying to create everything from scratch! We call this “reinventing the wheel,” and it uses up too much of your time!

Instead of spending all of your time reinventing the wheel, ask others for help! See if there is a veteran teacher at your school (or on social media who you have connected with) who can give you some ideas. You don’t have to do it all!

Being a new teacher and planning for math instruction can be a challenge, but you don’t have to do it alone! Start with these five tips and planning for math will be so much easier!

What questions do you have about teaching math? Let me know in the comments below!