May can be a tough stretch for teachers, with high emotions, routine pushback, and packed calendars. In this episode, we share why the mid-May slump feels so challenging and how trying to tighten control can backfire. Instead, we walk through five simple ways to rebalance structure and spark so you can keep students engaged, reduce chaos, and finish the school year feeling more steady and in control. These small shifts can bring fresh energy to your classroom without adding extra stress.

Prefer to read? Grab the episode transcript and resources in the show notes here: https://www.secondstorywindow.net/podcast/may-classroom-management/

Resources:

• 3 Wins app
• Foot cream
• Check out our book Structure and Spark
• Join The Teacher Approved Club
• Connect with us on Instagram @2ndstorywindow
• Shop our teacher-approved resources
• Join our Teacher Approved Facebook group
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Leave a comment or rating on Spotify

Related Episodes to Enjoy:

• Episode 124. Spring Fever: 3 Tips to Help Your Spring Classroom Management
• Episode 251. 5 Classroom Management Tricks That Do the Work for You
• Episode 247. 4 Spring Classroom Management Headaches and How To Fix Them
• Episode 232. 5 Ways Teachers Can Spark Joy When Classroom Energy Tanks

Mentioned in this episode:

Set up back-to-school the right way, so the year doesn't come undone by October. Get your free ticket: https://secondstorywindow.net/summertalks

This is episode 257 of Teacher Approved.

You're listening to teacher approved, the podcast helping

educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm

Heidi.

And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story

Window, where we give research-based and teacher

approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more

effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from

each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to

the show.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's

episode, we are talking about how to survive that mid-May

slump, where you can see summer but you can't quite reach it

yet, and we're sharing a tip for holding the day steady when the

routine is falling apart.

But first, let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we

share a quick win that you can try in your classroom right

away. Emily, what is our suggestion for this week?

This week, try complimenting a colleague in

front of their class. May is the season where teacher burnout

really starts to bite, and one of the best antidotes to burnout

is connection. We get so isolated in our own classrooms

with our own problems, and it's easy to forget that there are

other adults in the building who totally get it. And really, this

couldn't be easier. Just the next time you're talking to a

colleague who has students with them, just say something nice

about them in front of their class.

My friend Vicki was so good at this. Anytime she popped

into my classroom, she'd say something like, Do you guys know

how awesome your teacher is? You are so lucky to be in her class.

This did two things at once, obviously, like, I loved Vicki

for it, but it also gave me an opening to praise my class. I'd

always say something back, like, it's pretty easy to be a good

teacher when your class is this awesome. I'm so lucky to have

these kids in my room.

Oh, I love that. And then I bet everybody's day was just a

little bit brighter when she did that. Well, if you like this

idea or anything else we share here on the podcast, we would

love it so much if you take a second and give us a five star

rating on your podcast listening app.

Okay, so let's talk about why this stretch of May is so

brutal, because it's not just one thing, it's like three

things stacked up on top of each other in a trench coat.

Of course it is, and that's why it's so tricky to

manage. First up, everyone's emotions are all over the map.

Some kids are crying because they don't want fourth grade to

end, and other kids are crying because fourth grade isn't

ending fast enough, and they're fed up. And you're probably

somewhere in the middle, just trying to hold it all together.

And then there's the structure thing. Your Kids

genuinely need your routines right now because they are so

dysregulated, but they push back on every single one of them.

They want to know what's coming next, but they don't actually

want to do what's coming next.

Yeah, that's a fun puzzle to solve at the end of the year

when your tank is totally empty.

And that's the third piece, their energy is going up,

yours is going down, and there are still three or more weeks at

school left, and your calendar looks like it was filled out by

someone on a dare.

Or maybe by an adrenaline junkie. There are the assemblies

and dress up days in all of the end of your celebrations.

Yep.

Given a choice, no rational person would choose to

cram this many extras into an already heated situation. It's

kind of like tossing gasoline onto a fire.

I know, I'm always like the parents don't want this

much, the teachers don't want this much. Why, why does they

have to be like this? Well, with so much going on, I think

teachers feel like they have to pick a side either you double

down on structure and you hold the line on every single rule,

which, you know just makes the kids push back harder, or you

let it all go and try to coast through the days, and that

means, you know, your classroom is in chaos by 10am.

Neither of those approaches work particularly

well. That's because May is not an all or nothing kind of month.

You don't have to choose between structure and fun. You just have

to make sure they're balanced.

If you're new here, welcome. We're so glad to have

you. This might be a new concept if you're new here, but if

you've been here a while, then you already know that this is

one of our favorite topics.

Yeah, in fact, we love it so much we just wrote 70,000

words about it.

I mean, you know what? We were like, that's gonna be so

hard to write such a long book, and we were contracted for a

60,000 word book, which felt like a lot, but, you know, we

just had so much to say. We felt like we needed that extra 10,000

words to say it all.

We tried to cut it back, but there's just so much to say.

Every time we cut something, I think we just added

something else, somewhere else.

So if you need a refresher, a calmly managed

class requires a balance between two energies, structure and

spark. That balance shifts depending on where you are in

the school year. These last few weeks are what we call the home

stretch. This is the season where rebalancing matters most.

Too much rigidity right now triggers resistance, but too

much looseness sends the whole class into free fall.

So the trick in this season is to maintain the

predictability your class needs, to feel grounded, and add just

enough novelty to keep them interested, but not hyper.

And that is a trick, but we are here to help you out.

Today, we are sharing five small switch ups. These are little

shifts that add the spark your students are craving, without

giving up the structure that's keeping you functioning. And

none of these require very much prep at all.

Yeah, these are just tiny tweaks to what you're already

doing. And our first smart switch up is the change of

scenery. This is exactly what it sounds like, you do your regular

activity, you just move it to a new location.

And it's almost magic how well this works. It can be as

small as moving your read aloud from the back carpet to the

front of the room, or having silent reading under desks

instead of at desks.

And if your class really needs a bigger shift, or you

think they can handle a bigger shift, you can do something like

math review in the gym or a science lesson in a different

teacher's classroom. You don't have to do anything different

with the content, but a new spot makes everything fresh.

One of my favorite versions of this is doing a

class swap. If you have a willing teammate or two, try

rotating classes. So each teacher plans one activity, and

the kids rotate through. That way you only have to plan one

activity, and the kids are getting three or four new

experiences.

Yeah. Plus, kids often behave a lot better for teachers

that they don't see every day, so that kind of gives you a nice

break from refereeing the same arguments that you've been

refereeing all year.

The reason a change of scene works so well is because

novelty triggers the brain to release dopamine, which is the

chemical tied to motivation and engagement. When something

familiar shows up in slightly different ways, the brain perks

up and pays attention. That new location is doing the management

work for you.

Okay, so our second switch up is playing the

favorites. This is just bringing back the hits from earlier in

the year.

This one is so underrated. When teachers think

about adding spark at the end of the year, they usually think

they have to plan something brand new. But honestly, the

best stuff often already exists in your room. You've spent nine

months building this class culture, so use it.

Yeah, think about all the activities your kids loved this

year, the favorite read aloud, the math game that everybody

asked to play again, the science experiment that got everyone

talking. You can just bring those back.

I had a class one year that was, like, weirdly obsessed

with musicals, and they were a tough class, especially at the

end of the day. They had just had it. So I made a deal with

them, if they would clean up quickly at the end of the day,

we could watch part of a musical until the bell rang. So at the

end of the year, it just felt to spend an afternoon watching

Sound of Music in one go, instead of in like five minute

chunks. The kids were so into it, except, obviously I did fast

forward Climb Every Mountain, because nobody, nobody has the

patience for that one.

No, why is that song in there?

There's one in every show, you're just like, okay,

come on.

Yeah, but that is the perfect example of playing the

favorites. It wasn't a brand new activity, it was something your

class already loved that they got to do in a bigger, more

satisfying way at the end of the year.

What makes this so genius for May specifically, is that

the kids already know how to do these activities, so they can

just dive in. You don't have to teach the rules or model

anything.

And while the kids are busy, you get a pocket of prep,

which means you can pack a bin or grade a stack of papers.

That's the kind of hack you need at the end of the year.

So as you were thinking about your last weeks, think

back over the year. What activities did your kids ask to

do again? What lit them up? Don't reinvent the wheel. Just

use the wheel you already have.

Our third switch up is one a lot of teachers don't

think about, and it's a really fun one. Give your students a

peek at what they'll learn next year.

I love this one because it taps into something kids

really want, which is to feel like they're growing up. By May

they have been in your grade all year. They want to know what's

next, and they want to feel like the big kids.

So go peek at the curriculum for the grade above

yours and pick something that has a natural wow factor. So if

you teach second grade, maybe you do a mini lesson on cursive.

If you teach third grade, maybe you introduce two digit

multiplication. If you teach fifth grade, maybe you give them

a taste of middle school science.

To really boost the buy in. Present it with some

fanfare. You can say something like, You guys have learned so

much, I think you're ready for something kids usually don't see

until next year. That kind of framing just turns this lesson

into a whole event.

Yeah, and it like raises the level of concern in the room

in a good way, because suddenly the kids are leaning in like,

Ooh, this is something I'm going to need. And they pay closer

attention, because the stakes feel important.

Just make sure that those stakes aren't causing any

anxiety.

Yeah.

Frame it as a sneak peek, not as a preview of how hard

things are going to get.

And also be considerate of next year's teacher. You

don't want to step on their toes by going too deep into a topic

that they're going to teach in the fall. Just stick to

introductory, hands on stuff. The goal is to spark curiosity,

not to teach mastery.

So a really good example of this is multiplication

tricks. Kids think they're so cool, but if you teach a bunch

of shortcuts before they've built the conceptual

understanding, you're going to undermine the work that next

year's teacher is trying to do. So keep it light. You're not

responsible for teaching this, so just enjoy the fun part of

it.

And if you don't want to deep dive into one topic, you

can also just do a broader sampling. Pull up the curriculum

for next year and let kids preview a bunch of different

things, let them share what they already know about each one and

what they're excited to learn.

This is one of those switch ups that delivers

structure and spark at the same time. There's spark because it's

new and exciting and a bit of a mystery, and there's structure

because the kids naturally lean in when they realize that this

content actually matters.

Okay, switch up number four is team up time, and this

one solves a really specific May problem, which is that kids are

dying for social interaction right now.

Yeah, they pretty much want to talk non stop, but you

can't just let them sit in a corner and chat. Although that's

probably tempting. So we need a structured outlet for that

energy.

One of the best ways to do this is to team up with a

class in a different grade, reach out to a teacher friend,

ideally, one whose class is two or three grade levels different

from yours, and see if they'd be interested in partnering with

your class.

When I taught second grade, my friend Angela taught

fifth, so it worked out really well for our classes to partner

up. My kids would bring math games or books to read with

their buddies, and then Angela and I got a chance to hang out

for a few minutes.

And what's so great about this is that it satisfies the

social hunger without the chaos that usually comes with it. The

older kids show up to those buddy sessions like little

mentors. They want to be impressive role models, and the

younger kids want to impress them right back, so they're on

their best behavior because they're trying to seem grown up.

Plus that has real academic value. The little kids

get one on one support, which is hard to come by in any

classroom, and the older kids get a chance to review skills

that they may not have practiced in a while. Even a fifth grader

can use some more time with subtraction facts and reading

fluency.

One important tip if you do this, be sure to assign the

buddies. Do not let the kids pick, otherwise you're going to

have somebody standing alone, and then you'll feel terrible.

So make a pairing list ahead of time, so you can pair kids

strategically based on social and emotional needs.

And a really nice bonus of team up time is that kids who

struggle with behavior in your room often shine in this

setting. Because the dynamic is different, they get to be the

helper, and this can really be such a confidence boost for kids

who don't usually get to feel that.

Okay. Our last switch up is little freedoms. Loosening

one low stakes rule can make your students feel like they got

handed the keys to the castle.

This one is maybe the most counterintuitive on the

list, but stick with us. It seems like relaxing a rule will

just make everything fall apart, right? But that is genuinely not

what happens, as long as you do it strategically.

Yeah, the strategy is the most important part here. Start

with something that has insignificant impact on your

routine. So if your normal rule is no toys at school, maybe you

say you can bring a small stuffed animal or a fidget for

your desk tomorrow. Even if the rest of the day is completely

ordinary, that one little freedom feels like a treat.

If you are relaxing a rule in one place, you need to

fortify the structure around it. Make the boundaries clear. Maybe

the stuffies only come out during quiet reading time, or

you can read aloud to your stuffy for fluency practice. The

parameters make sure that freedom feels fun.

If you try this one, make sure to set limits on what they

can bring. So no electronics, nothing expensive or

irreplaceable, because you do not want to be the reason that

Dylan loses his beloved teddy bear that he sleeps with every

night.

Yeah, his parents aren't going to thank you for that. And

you also don't want to have somebody's Switch mysteriously

disappear from their backpack.

Oh gosh, yeah.

Your classroom rules exist for a reason. So if you

are deciding to relax a rule, you have to account for all of

the potential side effects.

Yeah, somehow it takes a lot of extra rules to support

one relaxed rule, which feels a little funny, but it works

because it gives kids that taste of freedom that they're craving

without giving up control.

Another easy little freedom is loosening hallway

expectations, not in a crazy way. We don't do crazy hallway

here.

No.

But you can let the line leader pick a silly walk, as

long as everyone stays silent. Or turn the hallway into a

freeze game. When you turn around, everyone has to pose

like a statue.

Instead of relaxing a rule, you can try implementing a

new rule, but this rule is meant just for fun. So growing up,

because we're old, we watched Pee Wee's Playhouse on Saturday

mornings, and Pee Wee always had a secret word, and whenever you

heard it, you were supposed to scream.

I always tried so hard to remember the word after the

episode was over, but no luck. Memory like a sieve even when I

was eight. But you can apply the same principle in your

classroom.

Yeah, but not with the screaming part.

Yeah, no screaming.

Do something like maybe take a nod from Finding Nemo and

have a class call and response. So anytime the teacher says

Shark Bait, the class says, ooh, haha.

That's such an easy way to add some whimsy to the day.

The only catch is remembering that you have to say Shark Bait

a few times a day.

Yeah, maybe you need to set a little alarm on your phone

to remind you to do it.

If you decide to try offering some little freedoms,

stick to one relaxed rule at a time. Don't listen to everything

at once, or it really will fall apart. And frame it as a

privilege that the kids earned through being responsible. Be

willing to pull back if things get wild.

So those are our five smart switch ups for the messy

middle of May. Change a scene, play the favorites, peek ahead,

team up time, and little freedoms. That's how you keep

structure and spark balanced in May.

And if this topic was helpful, you are going to love

our new book. It's coming out in August, and it will walk you

through how to reset the balance between structure and spark all

year long.

The book is available for pre-order, and we would love

your support. If you've gotten value out of these conversations

around the podcast, pre-ordering our book would be a great way to

support us. Every author says that, but it is so true, the

pre-orders really do make a big difference for authors.

And as a bit of spark to the structure, we have some

really fun pre-order bonuses on the way, and we will tell you

more about those soon.

Yeah, and if you've already pre-ordered, you'll

still get all the bonuses after so don't worry. There is a link

in the show notes if you're ready to pre-order, and a huge

thank you in advance to anyone who does. It really means so

much to us.

Now for our Teacher Approved Tip of the Week, where we share an

actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and

simplify the rest. This week's teacher approved tip is to

protect your morning routine. Let's talk about it, Heidi.

Oh, this is so important. We just spent the whole main

segment talking about adding spark to the day, and now we're

saying, But wait, not in the morning. Mornings set the tone

for the whole day. If you start the day with too much

excitement, that energy keeps climbing until it crashes. You

know, usually around 10:30 in the form of a meltdown over a

missing pencil. Your students need predictability more than

ever right now, because they are so dysregulated. The kids who

resist structure are usually the ones who need it the most, and

the morning is the anchor for all of those swaying nervous

systems.

Yeah. So even when you're loosening rules and switching

things up later in the day, keep your morning the same. That

predictability is what lets them handle the spark that you are

going to add in later.

And that's what makes the rest of your day work. If the

morning is steady and predictable, then the change of

scene later feels like a fun shift, instead of just one more

thing in a chaotic day.

Right.

To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we're giving

extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra

credit?

I'm giving extra credit to the miracle foot cream that I

got, except it's not called that. It doesn't even like, have

a name. It's just like a made, I don't know.

Black market?

No. It's just like, not like a name brand. It's just

like a cheap brand on on Amazon, it says grocerism is the name.

Grocerism?

Grocerism, yep.

Okay.

It is a 40% urea cream, which sounds like, oh, that

might be spicy. It's not spicy at all. It just feels like a

nice lotion, and it's got a little bit of salicylic acid in

it, and like a couple of other things, like aloe vera and

stuff. And like, you put this thing on at night and you will

have soft feet in the morning. I'm not even joking.

Oh, okay,

I've been using it on the back of my 10 year old's arms

too, because she's got the keratosis polaris problem. Hers

was getting pretty bad, and so we put that on and like the next

day, it already was a ton better. So check it out. It

works good.

Okay, I'm sure there'll be a link in the show notes.

There will. What are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?

I'm giving extra credit to the three wins app. I think

this was only on iPhone, so apologies to Android users. But

I've been using this for a couple months now, and I love

it. So the idea is that, I think it's set up where, like at the

start of the day, you pick the three most important things you

want to get done in that day, and then at the end of the day

you come back and you say whether or not you've done

those. But I use it just at the end of the day to make a list of

everything I managed to get done.

And as someone who struggles with productivity guilt, this

has been a game changer. It's so easy. I just go through it, I

list everything I got done, because sometimes you get to the

end of the day and you see everything you didn't get done,

or what you feel like you got done isn't enough, or you just

take for granted all the little things you did, like, you know,

getting a load of laundry done, or putting the groceries away.

Like, once you start listing it out, it's just been such a huge

relief to me to be like, Oh, I'm crushing it. I'm doing so much

here. And if you check off all the wins for the date, you get

confetti. So, that's extra fun.

It's like, now that you're a Libby user, you'll have

to know this, that when, if you return a book early, they pop up

a little bouquet on the screen, and if you click that, then it

shoots all these flowers. I didn't even know this until a

couple months ago, I was returning books early and not

getting a celebration.

Yeah, you've missed out.

Yes, but I will check this out, because it's, usually

at the end of the day I'm like, What did I even do today? Even

though I know I did stuff and it's way easier to just focus on

all the things you didn't get done.

Yep, I used to have a journal that I would try and

write in, but I just couldn't keep up with it. But it's so

easy on my phone. So I give this five stars.

That is it for this week. May is a tug of war between holding on

and letting go, and the way through that middle stretch is

not to pick a side, but to rebalance. Try one switch up

this week and see what happens.

We'd love to hear which one you tried. So come find us

on Instagram @2ndstorywindow, and that's with a two. And don't

forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. We will see you

next week.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of teacher approved. I'm

Heidi.

And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow

or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an

episode.

You can connect with us and other teachers in the

Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.

Bye for now.

Bye.