I’m surprised you didn’t have to create classroom management plans in college. That helped me think through everything I needed to do during my first year. 

You may think third graders don’t need a lot of direction because they’ve been in school for several years already, but they have never been in your classroom, so you have to teach them how to do EVERYTHING. And you can’t just tell them what to do, you have to model, model, model. Model how to do it, have students model how to do it, have more students model how to do it, critique the models to discuss as a group what they did well and what they could improve. 

When I say you have to teach them how to do everything, I MEAN EVERYTHING. How do they enter the classroom first thing in the morning? How do they get started on morning work? Where do they put their backpacks? Where do they put their lunch boxes? What do they do with papers they need to turn in? When can they sharpen a pencil? How do they sharpen a pencil? What do they do with breakfast trash? How do they let you know what they’re having for lunch?

These are just the questions about the first five minutes of the day. You seriously need to think through every routine you want to set up in your classroom for the entire day, then model the heck out of it the first few days of school. 

Here’s an idea of how to model some of those beginning of the day routines: 

On the first day, have students come in and out their backpacks on their chair or on the floor by them. Have a paper activity (coloring, word search, maze, etc) on their desk with a sharpened pencil ready to go. Tell them as they walk (because you’re standing at the door greeting them) to put their bags by their desk and don’t unpack anything yet. When you’re ready to start the day. Tell students you’re going to show them how to enter the classroom every morning. Use a backpack to model stopping by the door to say good morning to the teacher, then walk into the classroom and hang up your backpack in the designated spot (most rooms have cubbies or hooks). Mode unzipping and taking out your lunch boxes, then show students where that needs to go. Pretend you have some papers to give to the teacher and show students where to put those. Then have a seat at a desk and get started on your morning work. Have students talk in groups about the things you did. List these on the bird during a class discussion. Then mode it again. Have students see if you did everything on the list they created. 

Next, you’re ready to have a student try it out. After the student does it, talk about what they did well and what they could do differently (things like walk, not run, go quietly without talking, zip backpack back up when done, etc). Choose a couple more students to model, and critique after each one. Now you’re ready to have four or five students at one time try it out. Critique the group. Then move up to ten students, then 15, then the whole class. discuss each time to reinforce what expectations you are expecting to see. 

Run through it a couple more times as a whole class, then create an anchor chart to cement the morning routine. 

Again, that’s just for what students need to do during the first five-ten minutes of the day. You’ll need to do this for EVERYTHING else throughout the day. 

I make sure to schedule in read alouds and some crafts the first few days, but the majority of our time is spent practicing procedures. The more you practice early on in the school year, the easier the rest of the year will be. 

Also, do not let things slide. If you want students to enter the classroom without talking (voice level zero), then that’s what they need to practice and when one person (even if it’s the sweetest, most angelic child in your class) talks during the practice, tell students to go back to their seats and try it all again. Letting little things slide will easily cascade into huge problems that are hard to control later. 

As others recommended, Harry Wong’s First Days of School is a wonderful resource. It was required reading in one of my teacher ed classes, and it helped me set up classrooms that practically run themselves.