Summer Break is Just Around the Corner!

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.                                                                                    -Carl Rogers 

Depending on where you teach there are between four to seven weeks left in the school year.  You're in the midst of summative assessments,  curricular units and report card preparation.  You may be planning  the awards assembly, spring open house, and/or the class picnic.  In addition to  all of that,  your principal will give you a checklist to complete, too.  Amidst all this extra work, there is some good news, Summer Break is in sight!

This blog post is aimed at giving you pointers to create an orderly end to the school year.   They include items for your personal checklist so you can organize your classroom so you can get off to a good start in the fall.  Here are are a few pointers to get you started.

1.     Organize and Purge Your Classroom: Keep materials you’ll use next year and give away or toss what you won't use.  Don’t pack away piles of old worksheets or copies of student work.

2.    Organize and Purge Your Files, Both Paper and Electronic:  Just as you don’t want to leave piles of unnecessary paper in your classroom, clean out your file cabinets, too.  Clean a file drawer every day or so and the job will be done in no time.  Don't forget computer files!  It’s easy to forget how much data we store on our computers.  Look through your online files and delete items you no longer need.  This is an easy activity to do while watching TV.

3.     Create a Beginning of the Year Box: Label a box “Beginning of the Year”.  Put any items you’ll use the first week of school, including handbooks, name-tags, desk-tag templates, and bulletin board materials.  You can also create an electronic file or use a three-ringed notebook to store all the handouts you’ll use the first week.

4.     Cover Bulletin Boards and Open Shelves:  While custodial staff spend the summer cleaning so the school will sparkle, scrubbing floors and moving furniture kicks-up lots of dust.  Cover bulletin boards, open cabinets, and your classroom library with newspaper to keep them dust free during summer cleaning. By spending time covering items now, you'll save yourself from some dirty work later in the summer.

5.     Pack Away Personal Items:  Box up items that usually are found on your desk, file cabinets, table tops, and window-sills.  Supplies such as staplers, tape dispensers, pencil cans, globes, and teacher manuals may actually disappear if left laying around.   Put these personal items in a box labeled “Open First”.  When you come back to school in August, this will be the first box you’ll open so you'll have these office supplies readily available.

6.     Pack a Take Home Box: In this box include address list of this year's students in case you need to contact families.  Also bring home your new class list so you can send "Welcome To My Class" postcards during the summer.  Bring home web passwords for curriculum resources you may want to leisurely browse through during the summer.

7.    Write a Personal Reflection:  Consider writing a personal reflection about your first year of teaching.  By putting words to paper or computer, you can process successes and challenges and make plans for the next school year.  The copy doesn’t need to be perfect, since you are writing it as a personal reflection.  This is a worthwhile exercise because it allows you time to set goals for the coming year.  Consider these question for your reflection:                             

·      What did you learn about teaching this year?

·      What lessons, units, and themes would you teach again and which would you re-write or not teach at all?

·      How effective is your classroom management system?  What parts of the system will you keep and what will you change?  Does the system have a positive reinforcement component that works?  If not, how will you modify it?

·      Next year, what will you do more of and what will you do less of during the school year?

·      Name several new strategies you’d like to try next year.

8.    Summer Reading List:  Read at least one personal book and one professional book during the summer.  When you ask your students in the fall what they read during the summer, you can share your reading list, too.  Here are some professional reading suggestions from the Washington Post.   For personal reading ideas  browse these lists from the Brooklyn Public Library and the New York Times Best Seller List.  And remember to take time to relax, play, and have fun!

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.         -Maya Angelou