Getting ready for the beginning of the school year is always a rush! There is never enough time to do everything you’d like, so why not save yourself some time at the end of the year to make the beginning easier? Here are some tips to save you time:
Don’t you hate making back to school copies? Depending on the system at your school, you might need to wait to be given a copy code before you can make these copies. And then, once you finally have your copies ready to be made, there is a line at the machine. Save yourself this trouble by making your beginning of the year copies at the end of the school year! Likely, you already know what you like to use those first few days, so why not use up your copies now and save yourself the hassle later? You can also make copies for meet the teacher/or open house.
Here’s a freebie for you. Go ahead and get it copied now!
Purge! This is my favorite one. Have you ever heard someone say that teachers are hoarders? It happens to the best of us. Before school lets out for the summer, go through your cabinets and drawers and get rid of stuff you KNOW you won’t be using anymore. We all accumulate junk over the years! Random things that are just taking up precious real estate in the classroom or storage space! Chances are you have twenty-something little friends who’d love to take some things home with them so they can play school. Over the years I collected many posters and other teaching tools that are no longer relevant with today’s curriculum. It makes my heart happy to know that my students are playing school with these things at home. I remember my first grade teacher let me have a lot of her old things and I used to spend hours playing school with that stuff. I even still have some of her old school stamps with her initials on them! 🙂
Laminate! Is there anything that you know will need laminating at the beginning of the year? Avoid lines at the laminating machine by getting some things taken care of now. One thing I always do is make privacy folders for my students. I glue two file folders together and then run them through the laminator. This makes for a great privacy shield for my students to use while they are taking tests, or when they just want a little help concentrating. You might consider laminating any posters, name tags, badges, folders, or other things you know you will be using.
Supplies: Take inventory of what supplies you have left over and make a list of what you’ll be needing. Since a lot of teachers (unfortunately) have to purchase their own supplies, it will help you later on in the summer if you know exactly what you need and what you have enough of. If you have a few boxes of pencils still, go ahead and get those sharpened now! You know you will need them, so if you are fortunate enough to have any leftover at the end of the year, go ahead and get them sharpened. You’ll have more important things to be doing later.
Organize your classroom library. This is something I try to do at the end of the school year because books are bound to end up in the wrong spots throughout the year. Once the library is organized, you can mark it off so students don’t go in it anymore. (I usually do this with only a day or so left of school if I know we won’t be needing it much.)
I hope these tips save you some time at the beginning of the year!
