To my sun-chasing teacher pals,
Summer break is right around the corner, and one of the most common questions I get is: “How can I prep my classroom before break?”
Honestly... if you’re anything like me right now, you’re counting down the days, not thinking about next year, and tossing things into random places just to clear your space (for me... it's the extra pieces from our Mother’s Day craft and Earth Day activities 😅).
To make it even trickier, I usually don’t know what grade I’ll be teaching the next year, so over-prepping doesn’t always make sense. That said, I realized I could at least organize the chaos a bit better by creating a system that works no matter what.
I already had a solid set of scrapbook bins I used for ELA skills... back when we were departmentalized (RIP to that phase). Once I started teaching everything again, I repurposed those bins into "time of year" bins instead. Now, I have labels for everything from the first week of school, Halloween, and parent-teacher conferences to spring crafts, the talent show, and end-of-year celebrations.
So when I have one leftover piece from a project or an extra set of task cards, I just toss it in the matching bin, knowing future me will thank present me when that season rolls around again.
If this sounds like a system you need in your life, I linked the labels I made (with editable pages so you can customize your own too!) and the scrapbook bins I use. But honestly, these labels can work with just about anything!
No matter what grade level I am teaching and no matter my motivation level... I now feel like I’ve got a handle on the clutter in a way that makes clean-up way less overwhelming.