I know firsthand just how quickly back-to-school can sneak up on you.

One day you’re relaxed, with weeks yet to prepare, and then all of a sudden it feels like you’ve been transported to the night before school starts.

Year after year, it was always the same.

In case that’s what you’re feeling right now, I’ve put together some of our best back-to-school resources for you in one convenient post.

Here you should find everything you need to get your typing curriculum up and running in the new school year.

Setting Student Expectations

Before students even touch their fingers to the keyboard, you’ll want to lay down some ground rules. We recommend the following 10 Classroom Rules for Using Computers to ensure that there are no doubts about what respectful and responsible computer usage looks like.

There’s even a poster of the rules that you can print or order to have these rules at hand throughout the school year.

You may also want to check out the post on 11 Tips to Keep Your Classroom Concentrated at their Computers for easy ideas to make sure typing time is productive and on-task.

Then, to help save yourself a major headache when using Typing.com or any other online program, check out our tips on how to create and manage student passwords.

Helping Students Understand the Value of Typing

Nothing is more motivating to a student than understanding why they’re learning something. That’s when it stops being just an assignment, but something they can be excited about.

A lot of students (and even adults) don’t really understand why it’s worth learning to type with all ten fingers when they can get the job done with just two.

So to help students understand that this is an investment that will save them days, if not weeks of their lives in the future check out our article What is a Good Typing Speed?

For older students, they might find it interesting to know what kinds of jobs touch typing will prepare them for. They might be surprised to find out how many top jobs require good typing skills.

You can also motivate them with stories of some of the fastest typists in history. I bet you didn’t know that the very first world champion was a 17-year old girl!

Promoting Safe Computer Use

How often are you typing at the computer and find yourself hunched over in a position that can’t possibly be good for your posture?

We’re all guilty of it, and kids are no exception. So before they dive into the mechanics of typing, help students develop habits of safe computer use.

9 tips to keep you safe and comfortable at the keyboard outlines a number of easy tips and self-checks that students (ok, and adults) can use to ensure that their computer use is safe and comfortable.

Introducing Students to Touch Typing

When it comes to learning to type, we have four main goals for students to:

• Become comfortable with computers
• Type with all ten fingers
• Type without looking at the keyboard
• Type at the speed of thought

We explain the process of teaching and the right balance of typing activities to help students master these four things in our ultimate guides on How to Teach Typing.

For further help in explaining touch typing to your students check out the following articles:

Streamlining Your Movement on the Keyboard explains why the fastest way to type is by setting your fingers on Home Row and only moving the closest finger to type the key you need.

The Secret to Typing Without Looking at Your Fingers explains how muscle memory works, and how it can enable you to type much faster and without looking down at the keys.

Beyond that, you also might want to try An easy trick to get students to stop looking at their hands.

For more inspiration on how to kick off the year getting kids pumped about typing, check out the rest of the Typing.com blog. And don’t forget to leave us comments about how you’re using Typing.com in your classroom, or other blog topics you’d like to see covered!