5 End of the Year Sanity Savers!

The end of the year is a very stressful time for teachers - our to do lists are a mile long. However, now is the time to start thinking ahead to next year as well (when your report cards are done, that is).  Today I am sharing a few things to do right now to make life when you return to the classroom just that much easier.  

Before I start, my best piece of advice to save your sanity in the days leading up to the end of the year is to ENLIST YOUR STUDENTS FOR HELP. I teach first grade and they are always eager to help out. Obviously there is a limit to their helpfulness, but if you teach older children then the possibilities are endless.  

Here are 5 things I have learned to do over the years to make my life just a little easier at start up in the fall: 


I learned the hard way that this is a must-do if you plan on replicating a particular bulletin board, or in my case, the word wall. I never seem to leave enough space for the words when setting up my word wall in the fall. I have such a hard time judging without the visual of the words. Enter my iphone and voila you can now look the picture you took and use it to easily get your letter headers placed with the right amount of space to add your words. Take pictures of any bulletin board/display/anchor chart that you think you might want to remember or refer to again for the next year. I am a very visual person and have many such photos on my phone. 

Do I really need this? Take time to purge! Sort out that filing cabinet. If you didn't use the papers in that file this year and you are staying at the same grade, recycle them or give them away! If you are like me then that will not be a priority when you return in the fall. I am totally guilty of an overflowing filing cabinet – take a look at my picture. I inherited files from the teacher whose room I moved into 15 years ago and they are still in there! Perhaps I have a problem!    Anyone with me??

Students love doing this job. First I have them find all the damaged books and move them into the book hospital bin. At that point it is up to me to decide if the book requires tape or if it has seen better days and is ready for the recycling. I have a number of books that will be recycled this year as they are so well loved even tape won’t help. Next, my students make sure all books are in the proper labeled basket, either guided reading level or thematic. It is astonishing how poorly sorted the book collection becomes. Very quickly those helpers start to police the other students as books are being returned. If your students are anything like mine we are bound to find a D level book in the E or F basket. I love starting out the year with my books all sorted and organized. It’s one less thing to worry about in the fall! CAUTION: I did not take time to straighten up my bins for the pictures.  This is real life at the end of the year! 

This will be a true sanity saver because systems that didn’t work probably drove you insane throughout the year! Now is the time while the year is winding down to honestly evaluate your organizational systems. Did they work for you and/or your students? Did students use the systems you put in place properly? If the answer is no, then why is that the case? How can you change things so it works for next year’s class? I have a drawer organization system I use to put all my copies etc. in for the week. I love it, but I don't use it faithfully, especially when I get very busy. I will continue to use this system though, despite my inconsistency, because it does work better than anything I have tried before. With my students I started using reading boxes a few years ago to help my students organize their read to self books. This is a system I love but I am finding the kids are really hard on the boxes this year: take a look at those tattered boxes. I think at the end of last year I only had 2 destroyed and this year it is almost half the class. This is a great system but I need to do more teaching about caring for their book boxes next year. 

These are some of my other organization hacks I implemented that I LOVE and will use again next year. Be warned, all the labels are looking very well used.  

What were some of your highlights from the year? What were some of your student’s? Have your students brainstorm about some of the things they liked best about the year. If it has stuck with them then it is probably a “keeper” activity. Take a moment and jot down some of your highlights as well. This can be pretty hard to do even at the end of the year so imagine how impossible it will be in the fall. This is also a good time to do some planning, if only in your head, about things for next year. I often plan to do this and forget, so I am hoping that the act of simply writing about it here on the blog will spur me to take the time to do this with my students. 

I hope you found some helpful pointers or simply were just reminded of things that you already do and need to do as the year winds down. I am on the final month countdown and will be thinking about these things in the coming weeks. 

Lastly, how about saving your sanity right now? As the weeks wind down it is more difficult to keep students engaged in their learning. I like to continue with a predicable routine until close to the end for my own sanity.   This Summer themed Spin and Graph center which is available in my store right now is perfect for this time of the year. Simply print and provide a paper clip for spinning and you have a center ready to go.  It's an engaging and relevant review task and a sanity saver all in one!  

Clean It Out & Clear It Out

Do you have over-flowing files, extra school supplies, and containers of craft supplies? Hopefully this blog post will help you want to get a jump start on cleaning out your classroom and clearing out the old! That is exactly what I plan on doing this Summer. 

My colleagues know how OCD I am and they think my school closet is very organized.  However, I knew it could look better and it drove me nuts that I had so many mixed matched containers. I had a variety of tubs with extra school supplies and many containers for my craft supplies. So, I bought these shoebox containers at Target 5/$5.39. I have started making a container for each item (tape, markers, velcro, yarn, chalk, etc.) Then, I'm going to add a label to the front of each container with velcro. 

I also have oodles and oodles of files that I had previously organized by month. After having to dig back and forth through files to find materials when I want to review, I've decided to organize everything by skill. I bought 16 big containers at Target and I am going to label each tub by skill. Next, I plan on putting all my paper files into binders. Then, I'm going to put all my games related to that skill, along with the binder, into 1 container. Finally, I'll add a label to the front so it'll be easy to identify the skill one I'll be able to house everything I need in 1 container. Here is what my "before" picture is. Hopefully it won't take too long until I can take an "after" picture. :) 

                                                  

Below are the labels that I am putting on the front of all of my containers. They go along with my polka dot themed classroom. :) You can grab these FREE labels by becoming a Facebook follower. Just click on the picture below. 

As you are going through your files, think about the clothing rule: If you haven't used it in a year or two, get rid of it! At least that's my motto since I can't handle clutter. Do you have any other suggestions about how to keep your files and materials organized?

   

Organizing Digital Teaching Materials

My name is Jessica and I blog over at What I Have Learned.  A little about me . . . I currently teach second grade, but have taught all grades, K-5 over the past 14 years.  Four of those were out of the classroom as a curriculum coach.  It was a great experience, but I love being in the classroom and seeing the light bulbs going off in students' brains as they experience ah-ha moments.  I also have two young boys at home that keep me on my toes!  You can read more about me on my blog, What I Have Learned.

I don't know about you, but, have I learned a lot from all the blogs I follow and the great TpT sellers whose resources I download.  There are some talented teachers out there!  It seems like I'm downloading a new resource almost every day or even several a day when I have a bit extra time.  My downloads folder keeps getting more and more full!

Are you finding yourself overwhelmed with all the great resources you're finding?  There are so many wonderful ideas and products that I'm having trouble remembering everything I have!  Well, I've got a solution for you!

First some backstory: Recently I decided to redesign our math work stations.  I pulled resources from all over the place to create our first set of 10 work stations.  As students worked through them, they had varying levels of success and challenges.  I decided that I didn't like certain stations as well as I thought I would.  Three days into our new stations, I wanted to add a few options to several of the boxes and totally switch out one of them.

I had so many great resources that I had downloaded over the past few weeks, but after downloading them and sometimes "filing" them away on my computer, I couldn't for the life of me remember what I had, where I had put it, nor the standards on which it focused.  I'd printed a few things, but even that didn't help me "remember" what I had.

My solution?  I created a document to help me keep track of all the wonderful resources I'm using in my Math Work Stations and just general math instruction.

This is totally a work in process and I have yet to go through the files that are already on my computer. What you see here are those that I’m currently using in my work stations. I figured I had to start somewhere!

Since this is for math, I’ve organized it by math strand. As I list more resources, I’ll probably add more categories and organize it by clusters. The beauty of working with tables is that I can split them or copy and paste rows into different places.  I've already referred back to the document several times and added even more resources.

The columns on the document include:

• Used this year, where I include the month that I’ve used it 
• Resource, where I list the actual game or resource, not the title of the whole product.  Sometimes products have more than one resource that go with different standards.  I want each one to be in a separate place.
• Picture - This is a picture of the front cover. I’m a visual person and this helps me “remember” what it is. 
• Document Title / URL -  This tells the exact document title on my computer, so I can search for it. If I moving the file someplace else, a quick search of the title will locate it for me on my computer. Some titles are a bit obscure and I’ve had to spend several minutes or longer trying to find something. That’s soooo frustrating! I’ve also listed where the resource came from so that I can credit the right person when I mention it in a blog post. 
• Standard is self explanatory.
• Skill tells more specifically the skill that students are practicing, which may be a part of a standard or a prerequisite to a standard.

A document like this will also help keep track of ELA resources for Daily 5 Word Work and Work on Writing or Literacy Centers. (A task for a later time for me!). It’s basically a way to centralize a list of digital teaching resources that you find helpful in your classroom.

What do I have for you? Two things.

One is a copy of my current Math Work Stations Document (click the picture above or the link to the left).  This version has links to the resources that I’ve used for my stations in January so you can go find them for yourself.  Many are free, some are my own creation.  We’re currently working on Place Value and Addition / Subtraction of multi-digit numbers, so there’s a lot of resources for those standards.

Two is a blank Word template that you can use to keep track of your own math resources (click the picture above or the link). You may not have the fonts on your computer, so those will need to be adjusted or downloaded, but it will give you a start on organizing your digital teaching resources! This template allows you to start keeping track of your own digital resources.

Enjoy!  I hope these keep you more organized with all the digital resources we have available to us.  If you have any other digital organizational tips, leave a comment below to share.