The end of the school year is near and you know what that means! Summer break! But first, let’s pack up the classroom in a smart, sensible way so that the last day of school is spent enjoying time with your students and not stressing about getting your packing done. Make sure to use this end of year checklist for teachers to save you time!
There’s so much that goes into getting ready for the end of the year. There’s packing your classroom, making sure your students take home their personal items, end of year assessments and entering final grades for the school year. If you are like me, then you love a check list or to do list and seriously need one for the end of the year. Don’t worry; I have some tips and tricks for packing up your classroom and also a free end-of-year checklist for you to download!
When packing and closing out your year, you also have to think of the following year so keep that in mind throughout this blog post!
When To Start The End Of Year Checklist
This is obviously up to you, but I start to think about packing up my classroom and the end of year overwhelm a month in advance. That doesn’t mean start doing it exactly a month before, but give yourself plenty of time to digest the things you will need to do before the last week of school. There’s also plenty of ways to make student tasks so that you aren’t doing everything on your own.
End Of Year Checklist Tip #1: Reflect On The Past Year
Reflecting on the past year is probably something you skip when thinking of how to prep your classroom at the end of the school year. However, it’s important so that you can think of what went well this past year and what you would like to improve on for the following year. This can be done with a simple pros and cons list. For example, you may be really pleased with how you planned classroom jobs or that you always did your lesson plans on Wednesdays for the following week.
You may want to improve on when you change bulletin boards the upcoming year. It’s important to think of a quick solution for how you will change those cons into pros. For example, do you have parent volunteers? Ask them to change your bulletin boards. Or, can you get to school 15 minutes early on one Monday a month? Make that your time to freshen up your bulletin boards.
End Of Year Checklist Tip #2: Organize Paperwork
The end of the school year is a great time to organize and purge paperwork! It’s a good idea to through your filing cabinets and determine what you have used and will keep. This is also the time to go through student paperwork and assessments and either send it home, file it away, or recycle it. If you have extra copies sitting around, don’t throw them away. Send it home with your students to use as a review over the summer. I wouldn’t advise saving it for next year’s students because if you didn’t use those papers this school year, you may not use them in the upcoming school year either! We do not want extra paperwork lying around!
End Of Year Checklist Tip #3: Take Inventory Of School Supplies
It’s time to open those cabinets and see what school supplies you have. Also this is the time to go through the shared school supplies bins your students use. Throw out the pencils that were chewed on, the markers that are dried out, and the glue sticks with no caps!
A quick tip for figuring out what markers are dried out? Give this job to your students. I used to have a huge marker bucket for free draw for indoor recess. At the end of the school year, I had a handful of students test out every marker to determine if it was dried out or not. The dried-out ones got pitched and we kept the good ones for the upcoming school year!
Do you have an abundance of certain school supplies? Decide what you will do with them right now. Either send them home with students or keep them for the following year. Maybe you can take that certain item off your school supply list for next year’s students.
End Of Year Checklist Tip #4: Clean and Declutter
Start the next school year fresh without all the clutter. I don’t know about you, but the end of the school year gives me heebie jeebies for this reason… There’s so much stuff everywhere. We accumulate a lot throughout the school year.
Return the library books. Recycle the old anchor chart paper that you’ve already used. Seriously, I would just keep flipping to a new page. At the end of the school year, I would have charts I made from the beginning of the school year!
This is also the time to go through your email inbox and delete those old emails! You do not need a school email from the beginning of the school year anymore! Make the start of the next school year a fresh one with a fresh inbox! Clean up your email list and unsubscribe to emails that you no longer want.
End Of The Year Checklist Tip #5: Organize Books And Resources
This is the time to go through your classroom library. Students can help you with this too! Give each student a book bin or a pile of books (depending on how your organize your classroom library). Students look through and examine your books. If it has ripped pages or needs some care, put those books in “the hospital”. Make sure you fix these books before the end of the year so that they can start the next school year in your classroom library and not shoved in a cabinet to do later (no judgment, speaking from experience!). Make sure to also have your students go through their book boxes and return the books they were reading.
Are the books in the correct spot? If your classroom library is organized by theme, make sure your books are with their correct books. That way, next fall your library will be ready to go for your students!
End Of The Year Checklist Tip #6: Hold A Raffle For Old Charts
One year, I held a “raffle” for students to “buy” old anchor charts that I was going to recycle. They used the tokens they got for behavior, but you could give them tokens or pull names. My students loved getting to take home the charts we used throughout the year. This is a fun way to get rid of those things without just tossing them!
End Of The Year Checklist Tip #7: Design Your Classroom Setup For The Beginning Of The Next School Year
This will look different for everyone. If you are staying in your classroom and keeping all the furniture, make sure you label it. Take photos of areas you want to stay the same so that you remember how to set it up for the new school year. You can also draw a detailed map of how you want your classroom layout to look like.
When packing up my classroom, I like to keep things I will need right away in an easy accessible spot. For example, I know I’m going to need my pencil sharpeners before the first day of school (and coincidentally we will use them up until the last day of school anyway) so when I pack it away, it’ll be in the front of the cabinet so I can easily find it. I do not want to be searching for it when I am setting up my classroom.
This is also a good time to get paperwork ready for back to school night. If you always use the same papers, go ahead and print them and put them in a spot you will remember.
Download Your End Of Year Checklist For Teachers
Our end-of-year checklist is a great way to stay organized at the end of the school year and to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything. If you love a to-do list, then you will love this list too. Set aside time during the last few weeks of school so that you can save time and energy for the beginning of next school year.
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