5 Simple End of Year Tips for Teachers
Even though the last month of the school year can be exhausting, I would rather push through than have to work in the summer or spend weeks from my well-deserved summer break to come back to work earlier than I need to.
Preparing for the next school year, at the end of the current school year, is honestly the best thing you can do to have less stress in the fall. This way, when it is time to come back, you can return to your classroom knowing you have a few things organized, prepped, and essentially ready to go for at least the first week back.
Aside from the organizing and prepping, the last month of the school year is also a great way to declutter and reevaluate what you need and what you don’t need and what you used and didn’t use. For example, if you buy something new on TpT, toss some outdated worksheets. For now, this post will specifically focus on end of year tips.
Once your report cards are done and submitted, because let’s be serious, those will take priority, make yourself a simple to do list and get started!
1. Take things off your walls and/or bulletin boards. Most likely, what you are teaching and focusing on with your students during the last month of school is not what you’ll be teaching and focusing on during the first month back to school. So, while your students are working independently, start taking things off the walls and bulletin boards and put them back in the right place immediately otherwise, they will end up in a daunting pile!
I also like to co-create the bulletin boards with my students which is another reason why I like to take everything down at the end of the school year. The bulletin boards are meant to be a reference point for your students not décor accent walls – but of course, we can make them look nice!
2. Organize your classroom library, book bins, manipulatives, plus any toys you might have. You can easily get your students to help with this! In my classroom, I have a classroom library with leveled books. The books are not always put back in the correct place and the bins are usually out of order.
I suggest picking a few students and having them check each book bin and make sure all books are in their correct spots. For example, make sure all Level 1 books in the Level 1 bin. I also have a picture book library. I will pick a few students to organize that for me too!
3. Go through your filing cabinets, cupboards, shelves, and Google drive/computer files. Basically, start the classroom purge!! While my students are enjoying some free time, outside for recess, or working independently, I will start to go through my classroom cupboards. This is a simple end of year tip. The end of the school year is the best time (and most freeing feeling) to toss and/or donate things you don’t need or that are taking up space.
Get your students to test out the boxes of markers to ensure they aren’t dried out, organize the paper, any workbooks, etc. I also get rid of random items around this time. For example, one year I had 9 boxes of little band-aids! They must have accumulated over the year and I do not need my cupboards cluttered with nine boxes of band-aids so I returned 8 back to the office.
If you’re a new teacher, let me tell you, there is *nothing* better than coming back to school after your amazing summer break to a classroom with freshly organized cupboards stocked with everything you *actually* need.
At the end of the school year is when you can also declutter your digital files and email. Delete all the emails you won’t need next year, clear out your downloads file and save things to where they need to be. This is an easy task you can do throughout the day, recess, etc. during your last few weeks of school and, it’s a mindless task!
This is my biggest end of year teacher tip and a great habit to get into right away so that you don’t become the teacher who hoards everything and the next you know you’re 15 years in with a cluttery classroom! 😆 Use your time at the end of year wisely!
4. Touch base with your team/colleagues (if you have any) and plan the first week back to school. And, remember, there is no need to reinvent the wheel! If what you had planned at the beginning of this school year worked for you, then do it again the following year! I see too many teachers who spent so much time re-creating things when they probably don’t need to!
Divide and conquer with your team, make photocopies for the first few days, prep the welcome letter, etc. As tired as you might be, it will be well worth it to just get it done now! I didn’t always do this, but once I started, it was a game changer. Plus, the photocopiers are less busy and I enjoyed those last few days of summer at home instead of in my sweaty classroom :).
5. Wash supplies such as scissors, bins, etc. Another thing I do during the last month of school before the summer break is that I take home the scissors and run them through the dishwasher. This way, they’re ready to go for my next year’s class and it’s one less thing I will have to do at the beginning of the next school year.
I also take out some of my manipulatives and run the bins through the dishwasher and let the cubes soak in a sink full of soapy water. So many dirty little hands have touched those cubes over the last ten months, they often get forgotten about.
In order to get most of these ‘end of year’ things done in the classroom while your students are in the room, they need to be working on a simple assigned task so you can get these things done without too many interruptions or questions from your students!
I will usually do a whole class lesson and then have all students work on the same task at once so that I can take things down, wash, and organize and not worry about centers, or small groups, etc. One activity that is easy enough to have your students work on independently is summer symmetry. This is something simple that they can independently complete upon entry while you focus on any of the above tips!
I will also provide my students with French summer vocabulary and summer-themed worksheets . They have a lexique to refer to that helps them complete the worksheets independently. The best part is, I’m still around if they need help or have questions and the early finishers can help me! It’s truly a win win!
Basically, the more end of year prep you can do during the last month of the school year, will help to make things less stressful and busy for you during the first month back to school, even if you complete only *one* of the five tips!
Last but not least, enjoy these last few weeks with your students! Some students might be anxious about the end of year, summer holidays, or the next school year. So, plan some fun activities and enjoy those last few weeks with your class🙂!
