Packing up your classroom can be the most satisfying part of closing up for the year. It can also feel daunting to plan how to pack it all up; making you want to throw it all in a box and call it a year. It doesn’t have to be hard. 

Join me for the End of Year Classroom Closeout series to prepare for the end of year with success and walk out for summer feeling like a rockstar! 

Show notes: www.annotatedela.com/podcast/episode6

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End of Year Checklist: www.annotatedela.com/free

Melissa Burch 0:00

Hey, welcome to Annotated ELA. I'm so happy you're joining me. This is the last episode in the three episode Classroom Closeout series. Today we are talking about deconstructing your classroom, cleaning out desks and lockers - all of the things that signal the end of the year is here, I'm so excited. Let's get to it.

Melissa Burch 0:22

Number one, collecting textbooks and cleaning lockers or desks. Collecting textbooks can happen in two ways. If you send textbooks home or assign specific textbooks to students, and they leave your classroom, that is the first way that we're going to talk about. I always have a spreadsheet of the books I have the numbers and then which child it's assigned to. If you don't have that, I would suggest doing it, but if students are assigned the textbook and it leaves the classroom, I would warn them the week before the textbooks are being collected. I might even send an email home reminding parents to check the house that same week, and then the week the textbooks are due, send another reminder and then send them to their lockers or have them call home. If textbooks stay in your room, which they do for me, I still have an inventory sheet of which numbers I have. And even though several classes are sharing the textbooks, I still assign numbers to students. It helps navigate who might be doing what if there's something that happens to the textbooks, it at least narrows down my suspect list. If the textbooks are in the classroom, then that's easy to collect, I will just keep it on the shelf and they go and grab their number. So there's really no collecting involved. It's just checking that the books I have in my possession are still in my possession. Collecting books is easy, if you're not tracking them down.

Melissa Burch 1:48

Cleaning out lockers or desks depending on what you have, I generally wait until two days or one day before the last day. Some tips for cleaning out lockers, we get big trash bins from our custodians and the kids can toss what they don't need. We recycle any of our consumable books that they won't need. And then they stand by their locker and we come by and check and then give them a wipe to wipe everything out. And once they've been cleared, they close their locker. Now some lockers don't have locks built in. And so we zip tie those closed if we're told to to signal that it's been checked. Have plastic bags on hand because inevitably, students are not going to fit everything into their backpacks. Same with cleaning out desks, I would do it around the same time have big trash cans available, bags available for them to take everything home. I wait until the last minute for this because it really does signal that school is over until they really won't need a ton of supplies.

Melissa Burch 2:59

Number two is labeling all of the furniture. So we've spent time leading up to this labeling bins and filing digital items and physical items and cleaning up all of the clutter. This is the big items - labeling all the furniture. We are required to do this. But also we have a cleaning crew that comes in during the summer and moves everything out of our rooms to deep clean and then puts it back in; or at least we hope they put it back. Take painter's tape and a Sharpie and put your last name and room number on everything, so that you get all of your furniture back. If that's something that's a problem, but even when I've been in schools where they haven't moved furniture out, we still label everything so that it just stays where it needs to things are also inventoried to our rooms. But this is just a very clear visual of where the item belongs. We are also asked to take all of our personal furniture and bigger items home. I've done both; I have rolled the dice and kept my personal little smaller bookcases at school and I always get it back with this year switching classrooms, I probably will bring home personal items to ensure that it comes to the new classroom with me, I just think that's smart for labeling furniture. I assign this to one or two trustworthy students who know how to spell my name, and put my room number on the painter's tape, and stick it on all of the furniture. That's a really, really great task to give to students.

Melissa Burch 4:31

Number three is organizing novel sets that you use with the whole class and your classroom library. My classroom has a lot of cupboard storage, which is super lucky and I'm sad to be leaving it. All of the sixth grade books are kept in my classroom, which is a big undertaking, not just keeping track of one set of classroom novels. Each cupboard has a label of which book is inside and then when you open the cupboard I have the inventory list on the inside of how many novels are in there and that they are all accounted for and then they're stored in there. Last year when I became the room to store all of these materials, I did assign student helpers to put all of the books away. And I am pretty specific. So they were put away by 10s, 10 facing spine out, 10 facing the opposite way, 10 facing spine out, so they were alternating that way, when my colleagues come to grab 20 or 30 books, or 25 books, it's much easier to grab that out. And it's easier for me to do a count at the end of the year when I'm inventorying everything. But if you're just keeping track of a smaller class set of novels, you could still do something similar making sure that you are accounting for all of the books that you should have. And it's super simple. The setup the first time takes the longest, but after that it makes each time much easier.

Melissa Burch 5:48

For the classroom library, I probably need to be better about my genre setup. It's broad genres. My classroom library is on built-in shelves. So for the past few years, I have just covered those shelves with trash bags for the summer. However, I have also had my classroom library on movable shelves, then I do pack the classroom library up each year to make sure that the books stay together and so that I don't lose any or none get damaged while they're cleaning. I have bins that are labeled, I keep fiction and nonfiction in their own tubs. You can even be more specific and do it by fantasy, dystopian, historical fiction, however you do it, you can have bins any way you like. That's the beauty of it. It can be however you like. And it should be however you like. Because that ensures that you're going to do it that way. And that it works for you. I just do fiction and nonfiction because again, this is a task that I will often assign to student helpers, I have my tubs ready to go. They're labeled, the students know which tubs to put which books in and then I pick trustworthy students that aren't just going to throw the books in there. But I'll give them a quick tutorial on how I want the books placed in the tub. And then they do that to ensure they're not just getting tossed in there and bending everything.

Melissa Burch 7:01

Number four is to take down posters, clean boards, clean all the surfaces, and test teacher Expo markers. These are all tasks that students can do if you have students whom you trust. They're very simple tasks. And students can be doing that while you are doing other things or working with other students; source out whatever you can. Taking down posters, anchor charts, whatever you have on your walls, if everything has to come down, have tubs and bins available again for the students to put all of this in. Now if you don't have tubs and bins, just have the students take it down and make piles. I know that in the past I've done that. And it's super simple on that teacher work day then to just put all of those items where I want them. But if you have the bins and the tubs have the students do the packing to save yourself time. If there are anchor charts that you're going to redo or that you're getting rid of; have a special place for the students to keep those and also show them how to remove the tape on the back or whatever you hang your posters with. It's really, really simple and quick to show them and you can have three or four students who are taking down posters, then removing tape from the back, and then putting the items away where they belong or packing them up for you.

Melissa Burch 8:14

Next is cleaning boards. So I always give my whiteboard a good wipe down. I prefer to use a little bit of water and then dry it with a towel because I have found that the spray leaves a film and makes it harder for me to clean. Before I clean my board, I have my students test any of my Expo markers that I might still be using and keep the ones that are working and get rid of the ones that aren't, and then they clean the board. Other students are cleaning desks and chairs and just wiping everything down for me. While I know that the cleaning crew is coming in to do a deep cleaning; I'm not always sure they're wiping down desks and other surfaces and the students have no problem wiping all of that down. They love it. Of course I save my area for that last teacher work day when I've cleared everything off to wipe it all down. But these are tasks that are really great for the students. They love to help and it's simple and saves me all of the time in the world.

Melissa Burch 9:07

And finally number five is packing my desk and completing the checkout sheet. I save this for the teacher work day, but let me put this caveat in there. My desk, I did pack some items last week. This is my last week of school and so last week I did pack up some items because really, do I need five pairs of scissors, or ten Different colored pens, or every single one of my paper clips, or files that were in there? Absolutely not. Just keep the essentials for the end of the year because of course you are going to still need your sticky notes and your pens and scissors and you want them readily available so that you're not digging through a box. The items that I packed up last week all fit in a box and left room for me to place the rest of my items. I will officially pack up my entire desk on the teacher workday.

Melissa Burch 9:59

I am aware that if you are staying in your classroom, you may not need to pack up your desk. And that's wonderful and great, but because the cleaning crew moves everything out, I do try and empty some things out for them to make it lighter. And it's okay because sometimes I'll put stuff in my desk that I need to clean out anyway and clear the clutter and be better organized. But if you don't need to pack all of that up, don't do it. Save yourself that time and let it be; same with filing cabinets. And then comes the teacher checkout sheet. There are items that I have slowly been working on for the past week because we are given our checkout sheet about two weeks before, so I don't have a lot to accomplish on that teacher work day. But I also have the day before, when the students leave early to do some of those tasks. I'm also spending some of that time planning with my new teaching partner for next year. But I cannot wait to finish that teacher checkout sheet, walk it on down to the office, hand in my keys and my checkout sheet, and click my heels as I head out the door for a much needed and well deserved break. I say break, quote unquote, because we all know that we will be planning, going on vacation, spending time with our families; but I hope that you are able to find some time to truly rest and recharge.

To all of my teacher friends out there listening. You deserve this; take care of yourself and I hope that the end is near for you. Here's to a really great end of the year. Until next time, bye for now.