Keep it Simple, Take Down: Classroom

Most teachers know that your school will promise to do painting and waxing some point in the summer, but in order to do that you have to pack your whole classroom up. I have found that keeping my classroom simple and neat helps at the end of the year. The key is to start packing things you are done using early. Text book you are done with, reader sets that you have completed. Supplies that need to be trashed why are you holding on to them... "Let them go!"

I keep my classroom library in crates so at the end of the year its simple just have a student organize and stack them. Your classroom should also hold at least 2 storage 8 gallon bins.

Posters slowly get taken down, wait until one of your students notice that a poster is missing, its the funniest thing. You would think to your self that you didn't know they would noticed but they do! Can't get any thing pass 5th graders!

A week out before for the end I do a lot of hands on activities so I can collect the textbooks and get my count in to the office for new textbooks and orders. So I pull textbooks for all subjects except Math. I love to leave math because we work on that everyday and its consumable what we have not completed I give them so they can use it in the summer.

The last two day we are really moving and stacking our desk on these day we have our party and look back over are year and make a vision board for summer and our new grade. The students love this activity. We also have our class auction for all the things I don't want to keep but just can't toss in the trash.The students love this and it helps me purge things I need to let go of.

On the last day of school who ever shows up get the honor to help me pack my area. The kids love this because the see all the notes and drawings I have kept that they gave me through the year.

Most imporatnt use your students who want to help and those that don't have an activity for them.