There are two types of teachers who wrap up a school year. Teacher A throws everything into their cabinets, closets, and desk drawers – locks it up and calls it a day. Teacher B wants to be Teacher A but forces themselves to take time putting things away meticulously so that the beginning of the year is much easier. I am Teacher B in this scenario. There is already so much to do in August, if I can do anything ahead of time to make sure future me isn’t so stressed, then it’s probably a good idea.
I am lucky because I teach mostly seniors, and they are done a week in advance before the rest of the students. I typically have a few juniors in each of those classes, so we get a lot of bonding time before the end of the year. They also help me wrap up the classroom. The juniors in the room help me:
- Testing all of the expo markers, pens, and regular markers that are available to students
- Sharpening old and new pencils and colored pencils so they are ready to be pulled out and used in August
- Organizing the W.I.I.F.E box which includes counting all the cards and doing all of the puzzles to make sure there are no missing pieces
Once they finish organizing, I neatly arrange all of the bins in my closet, that way things are then ready to be pulled out and immediately displayed in August!
This year I will also be using this time to start making workbooks for my students next year. As I mentioned previously, the start of the year is always very stressful and anything that I can take off of my plate is a huge help. I plan on getting all of the printing done so that I can assemble during one of my off periods and have them ready to go for next year! Thankfully we have a lot of really great programs at our school and so we have a lot of cool machines to help with those courses. They let me borrow the binding machine so that I could make the workbooks. I think this is going to benefit my students greatly and be a load off of my plate as they will already have all of their notes for the semester printed, in front of them, and ready to go.
During the last two days of the school year my students fill out an evaluation form – I always strive to be better and some of their feedback has been really helpful! I also have students write letters to next year’s students. They absolutely love doing this – and I get a good laugh out of some of the things that they mention.
The very last thing that I do before leaving is labeling all of the moveable items in my classroom with the classroom number. Every teacher chair, filing cabinet, table, and bookshelf gets a label. They move everything out of the room for proper cleaning during the summer and a lot of times things get misplaced. I don’t care so much about the student desks as each teacher on the floor has a different number needed each year, it always just works out.
Hopefully some of these tips help you get yourself in a good space to be back in August. I find that this helps me rest and relax all summer instead of worrying about all the things that will need to get done.
Happy summer! 🙂
Ms. Pi 4 Ever 