Trust me, your next year self will thank you big time for doing a couple of these things now.
~ Zeba from Episode 84 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
I know you are thinking there is no way I can already be thinking about next year, but I promise… if you prepare for the upcoming school year as the current one wraps up…your future self will be thanking you. This episode gives you so many tips on things you can do now such as organizing classroom materials, taking note of unused supplies, creating a supply list of what you will need next year. Involving your students in the cleaning process not only declutters but also fosters a sense of responsibility among them. Prepare materials early for the first week of school to reduce workload during the hectic start. Breaking down summer projects into manageable tasks and engaging in professional development opportunities are key steps for a successful transition. Lastly, I suggest fun ways to involve kids in cleaning, turning it into a memorable activity. Ultimately investing your efforts now allows for a smoother, stress-free return to school next fall.
In this episode I share:
- Organizing Classroom Materials
- Preparing for the First Week
- Fun Cleaning Activities with Kids
- Getting Ready for Next Year
Learn More:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe. And today I want to talk to you about some things that you can do to help you get ready for next year. And I know what you’re thinking. Zeba, let me just get through the end of this year. Everything’s a little overwhelming. Let’s not talk about next year yet. I get it. I get that the end of the year is overwhelming. There’s a lot going on. But what I’m going to talk about are things that you might be doing anyway in the end of the year. cleanup and all that stuff. But trust me, your next year self will thank you big time for doing a couple of these things now. So I encourage you to try some of these things out because I do them every year. And yeah, fall Zeba always thanks end of the year Zeba for doing that.
[0:48] You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs, and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:39] Okay, so the first thing that you can do to help get ready for next year is to organize classroom materials. I don’t know what it is, but in the end of the year, the final weeks, I get this, cleaning desire, this organizing bug in me, and I just can’t shake it. I don’t know what it is. I just start organizing different areas and purging things that I don’t need, decluttering the things I don’t need. But I do think it’s really important at the end of the year to go through parts of your classroom, not necessarily the whole thing, but, you know, different parts each year, and declutter the things that you haven’t used that year. Because if you haven’t used it in a whole school year, you’re not going to use it next year. It’s a good way also to know are there supplies that you need to order for next year? You need to make sure you get for next year. So have a list on your phone or on your computer where you’re like, I know I’m going to need these supplies. That will save you from buying things you don’t need. It’ll save you money. Over the summer, you’ll be like, oh, I think I needed glue sticks. And then you check your supply list and you’re like, nope, I had plenty of glue sticks. Especially if you don’t have access to your classroom over the summer, that’s going to be a game changer.
[2:47] But you also want to organize and declutter because every year you get new supplies and you’ve worked through your supplies over the school year and then next year you’re going to get more supplies. So if your shelves and your cabinets are full, where are those supplies going to go? And you’re going to walk in to setting up your classroom and you’re going to be wanting to setting it up all nice and pretty and you’re going to have boxes of things to unpack and you’re going to have to find places for that. So if you have empty space at the end of the year, yourself in the fall, thank you very much for having places to put the new supplies. It’s also a great time of year to do this because your kids are way more capable than they were at the beginning of the year. Beginning of the year, you are doing, you are helping them with every little thing. Now they can be independent for a good chunk of time. And at this point, you’re like, huh, what do I do with myself?
[3:40] Dare I say might be bored. Probably not. But I do think that this is a great time to fill up those extra independent minutes where the kids are all working and you’re like, wow, they’re all, doing stuff that I asked them to do. This is incredible. That’s a good time to start organizing and decluttering.
[3:58] So like I said, a good rule of thumb is if you haven’t used it in a year, in a school year, you’re not going to use it next year. So get rid of it. If you have multiples of things you don’t need multiples of, get rid of it. Or you don’t even have to throw it away. You could give it to students. Like if it’s extra books that you don’t need, give those away. Things like that. You could turn things into beautiful stuff and let kids create with it. You don’t have to throw it away, but you can get them out of your shelves. And yeah. The other thing is you can have students help with supplies. So go through the glue sticks and see are there any that needs to be thrown away. And same with markers. Are they old or dried up? Let’s get rid of those. So they can help with that. And kids love to have jobs to do. And they love to help you. And they love a lot of, a lot of kids love cleaning and organizing. So they can be helping too. But it’s also a good time to reflect on like what worked well for the classroom and what didn’t work in terms of routines and curriculum, like making little notes for yourself for next year, because you’re in it right now. And in the fall, you’re going to have had time off and you’re going to have had a break, which is good. But you’re going to might you might forget some of those things that you want to remember for next year of like this worked well, this didn’t work.
[5:13] In fact, throughout the year, I’m putting notes, post-it notes on curriculum things about reminders to try it this way or don’t try it this way because it didn’t work or this worked really well so that I can remember for next year. But in addition to that, you can think about the routines that worked well for your class or the routines that didn’t work because now might be a chance to try out different ways of doing things. If a setup didn’t work, like if the where you keep your glue sticks caused a traffic jam and kids were shoving and pushing each time, maybe let’s rethink where you keep your glue sticks. And now is a chance to try that out and to move things around. So it could be as simple as when you think about how you organize your materials, maybe that didn’t quite work and you want to try a different organization or a different classroom setup. So maybe you move some furniture around and see if you like it before you do it all over the summer. You have the whole thing set up and then you realize it doesn’t work at all. So it’s a great way to test it out with kids that are seasoned and responsible and independent versus trying it out brand new and seeing it flop with kids that are beginning of the year kindergartners. It’s just much easier with the end of the year kindergartners. So even if you don’t totally change up the classroom layout, if there is something that didn’t work, make a little map and keep it for when you do go back in to set up your classrooms that you remember. So yeah, before you leave school for the summer, I think it is important to have a list of supplies that you definitely need to get.
[6:41] And supplies that you definitely do not need more of so that you don’t spend money when you don’t have to. If you’re thinking you need like storage bins or containers, measure it out so that you don’t get the wrong ones. Like have a clear plan. Otherwise, you’re just going to be spending a lot of money that you don’t need to. And I also like to leave with the list of like summer projects.
[7:01] So not everything can get done all at once. Like you have big dreams and big things we want to get done, but you deserve to have a summer, too, and deserve to have a break. And so the thought of doing all the things at once is overwhelming, and it’s just not possible, and it’s going to leave you disappointed and defeated and tired. So, for example, like, I wanted to redo all of my labels in my classroom. That’s great, but I didn’t do my library. The next year I did my library, right? Like, I focused on different areas of the classroom to do at different times. And so think about what is your project that you might want to do and if it involves a curriculum or something like is there something that you’re going to need to take home with you are you going to be like oh I really wanted to look at this curriculum and redo how I make the slides for this over the summer and then you leave the curriculum at school then you’re going to be out of luck so make a list a reasonable list of some things that you want to maybe work on over the summer and if you get to them great If you don’t, that’s okay too. But don’t overwhelm yourself with thinking you want to do all the things you want to redo the entire classroom over. Pick one area that you want to make better and see if there’s anything you need to bring home or take pictures of or, you know, make note of what you have or don’t have so that you can work on it over the summer if you feel like it.
[8:22] And in addition to that, look into if there’s any areas where you felt like, I really want to get better at this as a teacher. Again, pick one area, like for the next year. And then the next year you can pick a different area. But if there was a routine or a type of curriculum where you’re like, I didn’t feel the best about this, I want help with this, look into summer learning
[8:46] opportunities for that. Look into online courses workshops books that could be helpful I have my favorite professional development books on my website or my Amazon storefront and I am going to be offering my summer PD by the pool and my live coaching weeks so if that’s something that’s of interest to you you can check that out but it is something to think about for the summer making a plan before you leave school of like I know this is an area I want to work on here’s a workshop that I can take or here’s a book I can read and having that ready so that after you’ve had some time off for the summer, you have a plan going into it and you’re not worried about doing all the things and doing learning all the things like pick one area.
[9:29] So the only other thing that I would say you could do for next year that your future self will thank you is making copies for the first week of school. I know it sounds crazy, but I always get my copies ready for the first week of school. And I am so thankful, so thankful because in the fall when I come to set up my classroom, I can fully focus on setting up the classroom and getting the kids’ names on things. I don’t have to worry about making copies and printing the things that I wanna do. So if you are teaching the same grade and you know what activities you love, get those copies done now and trust me, your future self will thank you very much. And if you’re teaching a new grade level or you’re new to kindergarten, look at are there activities that you think you might want to do, maybe make copies of those. If you’re new to kindergarten, I do have a first month of kindergarten bundle that has everything I do in the first month of school. So you could definitely take a look at that and print that and have that ready to go. But I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, your future self will thank you big time for making the copies now in the spring, in the summer, than when you’re trying to set up your classroom and run around like crazy, getting all the things done for back to school.
[10:43] That’s one big thing off of your to-do list for the fall. So, great! And that same lens, getting your back to school letter done now, you’re going to be so thankful about. I actually have to submit mine at my school before we leave. But having that done and taken care of, like when you’re over the summer and you’re thinking, OK, wait, how many years have I been teaching? And, oh, I’ve got to send that out. I’ve got to mail that out. Having the letter typed and ready to go is so helpful. And work smarter and harder. Don’t make a new letter each year. Reuse the same letter and just change the update the information that needs to be updated. That’s what I do. And I love that I have that done before I leave school.
[11:24] So I don’t have to think about it at all over the summer. And finally, like I said, with the organizing supplies and having kids help with the cleaning, a little trick I will leave you with is if you have a sand table or a water table, or if you just have a big bin that you can use.
[11:41] Let kids clean supplies. Let kids clean toys, anything that can be washed. They will have so much fun. I do this as a play area. We turn the water table into this. I put soap and water and then I dump like Unifix cubes or chips or counters or Legos, you know, whatever gets really gross and dirty during the year. Have the kids help clean it. They will have so much fun and bonus for you, it all gets cleaned and then you can put it away for next year. So that is a little bonus for you, but I highly recommend it. And yeah, so if you have any questions about what to tackle first for getting things ready for next year or what should you focus on, reach out. I’m always happy to chat. And I almost forgot our quote of the day. Boy, a boy was five years old. I said, like, how was your weekend? And he said, I didn’t even have a weekend. I just stayed home. To me, that sounds like the perfect weekend, but what do I know?
[12:39] So I know the end of the year can be crazy, but trust me, your future self will thank you for doing some of these things, all of these things. You’ll be in a really good place starting in the fall if you do some of these things. So let me know which one you tackle first. I can’t wait to hear.
[12:59] Thanks so much for listening to the kindergarten cafe podcast be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies if you’ve liked this episode the best ways to show your support are to subscribe leave a review or send it to a friend i’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips see you then.