If you are still wrapping up your school year, you might be looking around, watching your students enjoy the engaging and independent activities you’re giving them (see this post for some ideas!). They’re excited for summer. You’re excited for summer.
But ugh – then you start thinking about that end of the year checklist and all of the things you need to do to pack up your classroom after the students leave. You feel exhausted before you’ve even started.
Wouldn’t it be nice to actually get started packing up before they leave AND get them to help at the same time?
Here’s how to do that.
In this post, I’ll share some lists of what you need to do to pack up, and what your students can do to help. The work will get done, everything will get cleaned out and organized, and you will start your summer feeling accomplished and ready to relax.
2-4 Weeks Before School Ends:
*Begin cleaning out cabinets, drawers, and your closet, if you’re lucky enough to have one.
Be ruthless when it comes to purging things you know you won’t use again.
For everything that’s a maybe: store these things together. If you need them, you’ll know where to find them. If not – they should be tossed early in the next school year.
Since this task can be pretty overwhelming, I find it helps to work on it for 5-10 minutes every day. If I get in a groove with it and want to keep going, fine, but even 5-10 minutes will eventually get the job done.
*Clean out your desk. I mean – REALLY clean it out. Throw away or recycle everything you know you will never use, wipe out those drawers, and organize everything that goes back inside.
*Plan activities for your students to do during the last week of school. See my post for some fun, free activities they can do (mostly) independently!
*Take pictures of your classroom so you will remember how you might want to set things up next year. You think you’ll remember, but you won’t! Email the photos to yourself or just save them on your phone.
Before State Testing:
*Remove all posters and anchor charts from your classroom walls. (Sometimes students can help with this, depending on where charts are located.)
Last Week of School:
*Finish up report cards and any other end-of-year paperwork for student files.
*Organize/file necessary documents in student cumulative folders.
*Start returning everything that does not belong to you or that needs to be returned to the library, the science lab, other teachers, the office, wherever. (Some of your students may be able to return some items for you.)
*Go through any piles of paper and get rid of them. Either grade and return papers, or recycle them.
*Have students take home any workbooks or other personal items.
*Remove posters, anchor charts, and everything that your school requires you to remove from walls and the door. (This might be a job that students can do.)
*Make a list of possible office supplies you will need to order early in the next school year.
*Shred student IEP’s or health information (or return it to the appropriate person for shredding).
*Turn in any order forms or other paperwork for next year.
*Turn in any furniture inventory or damaged items needing repair lists.
*Make a pile of books or items you want to take home for the summer. My school district is currently doing the LETRS professional development and I want to finish one unit over the summer. So I’m taking that book home.
Take home any professional texts or other professional development books you might want to read or refer to during the summer.
*If you have any personal items that you don’t want to leave at school over the summer, start taking these home.
*Optional: make a list (or pull out your files) of back-to-school activities or lists of tasks to do.
*Another optional task but it’s a nice one: write thank you notes to teacher friends who are leaving, to mentors or other school friends who have supported you this year, to supportive parents.
*Delete unnecessary emails! (If there are emails you need to save, either save them in an email folder marked “Important Emails,” print them, or save as PDF’s and save to a file on your desktop.
*If your technology set-up is complicated (with a Smartboard, document camera, etc.), take a picture of that set-up! Future You will thank you.
Get Your Students to Help!
The following are tasks that students can do. I usually save all of these tasks for the last week of school. Hopefully, you have planned some independent activities for your students.
One of the end of year activities I offer is “help with classroom pack-up.” I list the jobs on the board and put a number beside the job to indicate how many people can work on this particular task. (The number depends on the size of your space and how many items you need organized.) I then let students sign up for the jobs they want to do.
(A caveat here: if there are students who might not be able to work well together or who might interrupt you constantly to get help with the task, I reserve the right to move people around or find something else for them to do.)
Typically we don’t do all of the jobs at one time. I might get the more time-intensive jobs groups working first, then allow other groups to start at other times. This keeps everyone from bumping into each other and causing more stress.
Here are the jobs I use, in the order that we do them.
*Organize classroom library bins. (This one starts first.)
*Clean out school supply bins. Throw away broken crayons, dried-up markers, glue sticks, etc. Organize the remaining items in the appropriate storage bins.
*Re-organize math manipulatives, science equipment, etc.
*Take down bulletin board displays and paper.
*Take down any remaining posters & student work.
*Remove classroom door display.
*Label all furniture with your room number on masking tape. When the floors get waxed over the summer, everything gets mixed up. Having your classroom stuff labeled is a big help.
*Label any personal items or furniture with your name on masking tape.
*Remove name tags from cubbies, mailboxes, etc.
*Once students have removed all personal items, clean the cubbies.
*Store classroom library bins in cubbies (or cover the bookshelves with bulletin board paper or newspaper).
*Clean tables, desks, chairs, and other furniture.
*Clean the whiteboards (and put away the markers and erasers for good).
Last day of school:
*Students stack chairs.
You may still have a few more tasks to do after students leave, but if you get started early and enlist your students to help, you’ll be ready to leave for summer knowing that your classroom is organized and ready for the next year!
Enjoy your summer!
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