As a teacher and a mom, I try to find a balance between work in school. I like to enjoy my summer with my kids spending time together and going on adventures. However, there are a few things that I like to do in the summer, to make my school year run smoothly. Completing these tasks in the summer help me save prep time in the school year.
- Organizing my Classroom Library: My job share partner and I have made it our goal this next school year to give our kindergartners more access to books. We are investing some time and money to do that. We have decided to organize our library by category, so we purchased labels from Teachers Pay Teachers that we will laminate and add to the book bins. There many different library labels that you can purchase on TpT or you can label your bins yourself with a simple picture and title. Sorting and organizing our books this summer will ensure that we will follow through with our goal. It will also save prep time by helping us find read-alouds and other books that we need to use throughout the school year.
- Prepping Student Materials: The beginning of the school year is crazy! We are all incredibly busy with meetings, meet and greets, etc. One things that is easy to prep during summer downtime is student materials. My kindergarten team likes to fill the students material bags and tear out and staple together the math workbook pages so that they are ready to go!
- Year Long Curriculum and Programs: Every year I like to have programs that I use throughout the year prepped for my classroom. I’ve found that if I don’t do the legwork ahead of time, I end up falling behind, and then the program falls apart and/or becomes a big stressor. Some examples of programs that I like to prepare ahead of time are daily math fact practice and sight word practice. One of the things that I like to prep ahead of time is my Bubble Gum Words Sight Word Program. Having all the components prepped and ready to go makes things run smoothly throughout the year.
