End of the Year Packing Up My Classroom | Bridging Literacy

so this week is the start of pssas and that means that for the next three weeks I have to ensure that everything is down for my walls so that I don't mess with the validity of the test so instead of just covering everything up I have decided that I'm going to go ahead and start actually taking it down for the school year because after these three weeks of testing I only have two weeks left of school so there's really no point so I've already started taking some of the things down I have these back cabinets in my room where I have a lot of vocabulary words and I did my very best of trying to keep them all together so that I can store them back where they are meant to go and then I had an area on my blue wall which had lots of parts of speech and so I did my best with making sure that I was taking pictures of those so that I can put them up in the correct spaces next year it is always really really nice to have those pictures at the beginning of any school year so you know exactly where things need to go and on top of that I had a board which had my um my interactive read aloud which we would keep track of the parts of platform read-alouds everything is pretty much down and so I want to give you a little tour of what it looks like now so here is my back wall looks like the beginning of the year and then the blue board is all down minus some little spots that I need to remove and then here's the front wall everything is down so what I've done is I've just kind of placed everything into stacks these are our think marks which were inside of the desks I took all of those out here are my vocabulary words so I still have little bits and pieces that I need to remove but I have Ziploc bags so that I can store everything in one spot a lot of these here are going to go into the unit folders in my file folder system which is where I keep a lot of those items but things such as this um my interactive read aloud wall all of those items are going to end up going into these little Ziploc bags so one of the things that I try to be super mindful of is that when I'm putting up like vocabulary words or something that's specific to a lesson that I'm doing is that I will place the unit and the lesson on the very back and what that does is it allows me to put it away a lot easier because I have everything labeled the exact same way so like all of these things are going to go together and I've done that with all of these so now I'm just taking all of the tape off so that I can get these filed away a little bit later on today it is officially the last week of school and this classroom needs to come completely down now in my district that I'm currently at I have to take down all the bulletin board borders and I also have to take down the fabric so this is going to be fun this is the first time that I've ever had to take down my bulletin boards and then try to put them back up in the exact same spots next year as much as it pains me I'm going to take this down first so what I am thinking is that if I place every single door in its own Ziploc bag so I have gallon size Ziploc bags I should be good and then what I'm going to do is inside here I'm going to tape that Ziploc bag with the bulletin border and in the fabric right on that door so that I can find it easily so we shall see if this works out very well I mean luckily it's not a square so I know where the sides are it's just making sure that I can have that all organized so that's going to be my objective this morning I also did bring in a very large container um one of these I don't know what size this is I have no idea what size this is however I did decide to go ahead and bring in one of these large containers from my home because we had an extra and the reason for that is for all the little knickknacks that I have I want to place them all in that one container versus trying to shove them inside of our lockers like the cabinet lockers so down here at the bottom is where we have all of the student lockers a few of those at the end have some items inside of it but I didn't want to take up all of that space so that they could get cleaned so all of the little things that I have up here up here are all going to get taken down and then placed in that large container so this will be fun I'm gonna try to get done as much as possible this morning before I need to sit down and really just think about what's happening for the day so here we go so I tried door number one and this is ripping off and it's way too many Staples for me to try to salvage it so I have a ton of this left over um I might just use that for next year and just consider it a loss it's ridiculous that I have to take all of this down because this is money that I'm wasting essentially it's terrible okay either way I'm just gonna rip these parts down and just save the fabric okay so here is what the Ziploc bag will look like I just have the fabric right there taped to the door it'll shut easily and then I can just take it off for the next year I will save these Ziploc bags I won't get rid of those um so they will just be in a box for the end of the year that way I can just reuse them for the following year after that but this is going to take a little bit when it comes to all the Staples you know I had good intentions when I started using all these staples because I thought oh durability um it's a bigger pain in the butt than I would have imagined it is currently my lunch time and I want to show you guys a little bit of the progress I was able to get all of the cabinet doors done which is very exciting so here's what it looks like feels very beginning of the year-ish when I was trying to get everything up um but I did place all of them inside of the doors so you can see it's taped on either side for easy access so those are ready to go I also started working on clearing out some of these items um so I had my paper sorters which are currently up there because I don't need those for the rest of the year I also have my little magnet for cleaning up all the um Staples that I have been throwing on the ground and I cleaned up some of these items as well you can see a lot of the stuff over here in our library is all cleaned up and as I mentioned earlier all of those items have gone into the bin so that is where everything currently is sitting I think that makes for a pretty good system I may I may try to get through a ton more today honestly I have a few binders behind my desk area that I might want to go through and start cleaning out some of those papers but other than that I think day one is going to be complete tomorrow I will start focusing on this big board and then maybe the board behind my small group table so feeling good about it so far it's only Monday and I have the whole week to be able to get it all done so today is day two of taking down the classroom and I started with the blue wall as I mentioned yesterday now this wall was a lot easier to take down it just seemed as though they were popping off and by they I mean the Steeples so the Staples were coming right out I was able to very delicately pull all of the borders off so thankfully I salvaged these borders so I don't have to repurchase those or use new ones next year I can use the exact same ones and so one of the things that I decided to do is as I was taking them down I wanted to remember where they go so I just wrote on them with Sharpie so on each one I wrote down where it came from so you can see bottom left side top top and I did that with all of them so currently I am working to take out all of the Staples which is going to prove to take a little bit of time so that is the project that I'm currently working on all right mission accomplished I have finished taking out all the Staples and I grouped them together now the black bulletin border was a little bit too thick so I had to put them into two separate piles but I want to show you what I did so I decided to go ahead and just clip these together instead of rolling them up because I think I'm going to try to put them inside of the really long drawers that I have for like poster boards and things to that extent because I don't have a ton in there um but what I did is I just put a little bit of tape over the clips so that I know exactly where it ends up going because I use this throughout my entire classroom and so if I'm able to salvage the one that's outside in our hallway that's out here I want to make sure that I have them separated and I know exactly where they go so that did not fit well inside of those drawers it was a little bit too big and bulky so what I did is I took all of the Rings and then I placed it onto a kind of like a shower hook ring that I had extras of and then I just wrapped that into the hanger that I have now it's not going to be perfect I'm hoping um that it'll fit pretty well but it's just gonna hang there uh for the next year and I did the same thing with my wreath so you can see I have that on a little cheap shower Hook from Walmart um and then I just hang I put it on the hanger so it can store it standing upright and if you are doing the same thing that I am doing don't forget to grab a little magnet wand and just run it through a few times because there are so many Staples everywhere this is a great little tool I love it it has been my first year with it but I figured it was much needed like already you can see how many I have picked up so I'm gonna do that a few times just to ensure that nobody gets stuck when they come to school today and I'll even do it on the floor as well but I try to be mindful and nights and not try to put any on the floor but I'm still gonna go across with it for a few times so yesterday was our kickball against sixth grade event I went home totally exhausted I think it was just from being outside in the heat for so long but it was really really fun teachers one just want to throw that out there but um today is going to be day three of taking down my classroom we just got I guess notification or like the list of here are the guidelines that's the word I was looking for um for taking everything down so this means that I need to go through double check everything but I wanted to show you guys exactly how much I've gotten done so far so yesterday I showed you guys that I took down the large bulletin board I still need to take those letters down I know it's really really sad I was gonna try to keep them up but I think they're gonna make me take them down um and then I started stacking some of the things that I know for fact are going to remain in the room now I'm not sure how much I can actually stack it here um so I'm gonna have to ask questions because I didn't really read that much inside of the guidelines of whether or not I can do this so I have some of the bigger items that basket I can probably put somewhere and then I placed my goal station over here along with the cart that I had next to it that has been put there but that's really what I've done on that side over here I went on ahead and I took down the little board I was just so overwhelmed and done with taking down bulletin boards yesterday um and so I took that one down because I was just annoyed and ready to get it all done I started clearing out a lot of the space down here and as I showed you guys yesterday let me open this up all of my bulletin border fit over here so you can see I have a welcome border this one's gonna be out in the hallway but I just have it hanging here so that I can reuse it for next year so that's where I placed it all and then I also took down the one back here by my small group area um that and plus all of the things over here are just sitting on my desk now you're probably wondering why do you have a very large cake um I told the kids at one point I was like oh we're just gonna like celebrate everybody's birthday all at one time so it's kind of like an end of the year slash celebratory of everyone's birthday everybody's gonna get a piece of cake so that is why I brought that in um so that has gotten down I placed the well I actually had to clean up there because it was super Dusty so I cleaned up at the very top and then I decided to go ahead and place the book stand up there um just so that it does not get messed up and then I have to take these down which is disappointing as well because I stuck those up there really really well um and today I'm going to tackle the French bulletin board it is my final bulletin board because I already have outside in the hallway done so other than that taking this down today and some of the smaller items that I have out here that I need to figure out what to do with I think I'm pretty much done unless I have things that I have to do that I'm not aware of so we will see when it comes to that the letters I'm probably just going to put above my closet and then just have those sit up there that's probably going to be fine um but we will see I'm going to ask some questions before I take them down and cross my fingers and hope um so my voice is going out because of allergies gotta love it I will catch up with you guys a little bit later on and show you the progress then hello and welcome to my classroom with my fan in the background um so yesterday ended up being a wild day not because there were a lot of events honestly we only had one event it lasted 30 minutes it was a dance party and we were very very fortunate to have it at the very end of the day so that was great however it was a day that was semi-normal-ish and with the kids just being so hyped up from all of the other events that have been happening it was really hard to rein them in so they were just very very excited they loved the cake by the way they really enjoyed it so that went off without a hitch today is that the right type of saying maybe it is I don't really know I'll have to look that up I'm sure my husband will tell me this as he's sitting here editing this video um so I've already done a lot of work typically like I'll have students help me um and they will kind of chip in on some of the other items that I have to get done and that's basically what we did yesterday they had some fun activities they've worked on a memory book yesterday I had a digital breakout for them as well if they had time and they were finished which they love digital breakouts and from there I was able to get a lot more done so let me show you where progress is so far as far as packing up my classroom so here is one side of my classroom you're going to notice that all of the spots are gone I have little velcro round spots the students helped me yesterday by picking those up so those are all officially off of the carpet and I've stored them away for next year I have also taken off like all of the little white velcro spots which if you just use like some pliers to be able to pull them off it comes off super easy and it's a great way to be able to like grab a hold of them because they're so small and it's hard to like pick them off so definitely use pliers if you have them and the other thing I was able to do is get my carpets up so we have to roll up our carpets I rolled them up and then I used some um I guess like Saran Wrap like really large Saran Wrap to wrap them up and then place them up there on top of my bookshelf so that carpet is up and also that carpet is up so the classroom is looking pretty bear I've taken up all of the pocket charts I've put away the white boards and gotten those cleaned up so really the only things that I have left are going to be this area back here and then I still need to clean up this area back here so my thought is is just to um Saran wrap my bookshelf so that nothing falls apart but I'm considering taking off my books and storing them somewhere else I think I'm just going to put them up here at the very top so that way if the Shelf itself is not super heavy and they can move it around a little bit easier without breaking it because these are very old I've had these since I taught kindergarten so I don't want them to break at all and I'll still Saran wrap them just so that I can keep the shape of it and hopefully it doesn't you know where you shift it doesn't fall apart so I think I'm gonna do that today I'm going to go ahead and move those over here and then I'm going to take all those other items out and place them somewhere in the classroom I'm going to leave out like all of the coloring items and things to that extent until tomorrow and then I'll just Place those last but I'll put those up in the front of the classroom and then it's just this stuff that I have to get taken care of so looking good so far and today is the last full day of school so I'm hoping I'll be able to get a lot more done today um like I said it's the last full day of school the kids get to have lunch on the lawn for lunch um I do not have to be out there which is surprising because I thought I was gonna have to be out there um so they're gonna get to eat their lunch outside on the grass which is fun and then this afternoon we have a really big Pride assembly so that is going to take up the majority of the afternoon because sixth graders are graduating to go to the middle school and there's just a lot of information so that means my time has been cut shorter not super upset about that but I do have just like some Choice activities for them to do today I'm going to have some kids helping me clean up I'm going to have them helping me sort through other items and cleaning out my library and fixing some of those items so they will definitely stay busy and some of them have been really into their digital memory books which I sincerely appreciate so I am going to go ahead and take advantage of this little bit of time I have and start um cleaning out all the rest of the stuff and putting it all away so I am currently dusting off my bookshelf guys it is so gross let me show you so this is what it looks like I mean that is terrible I did not do a very good job of cleaning this this year um so I'm going ahead and dusting through them and taking some time to just kind of clean it out I'll probably sort through some of the books as well just to get those organized so I don't have to do it at the beginning of the year before I place them up there at the very top okay so moved the Shelf it's been cleaned out I have my Saran Wrap and it's ready to go so now I have it off to the side they can move it easily if they need to done today was the last day of school it was a half day students are officially out for summer it is a weird kind of feeling because it doesn't really feel like summer at all um I feel like I'm gonna be coming back and students are going to be here next week but it's nine because my entire classroom is officially packed up so I'm going to give you just a little rundown of some of the things that I've done so one of the things that I mentioned is that I put the baskets the black baskets up at the very top you can see them all lined up there just to get them outside of the shelves I've taken everything that was over here on this side of the room and we've moved it all over here so the kids helped me stack the chairs today they helped me stack the tables I moved over the last couple of things that I had over here and then on this side the only thing I have is my small group table which I'm pretty much going to leave there I have some items that I'm going to be taking home just because I don't want them to get Icky I'm gonna wash a bunch of those things and just store them downstairs in the basement until next year and then Blaine has requested some books so I'm taking some books to him that he wants to read over the summer because he has a little Summer Challenge that he's going to be working on I don't think I've mentioned this guys I took my hat off so you guys can see my face I don't think I've mentioned this here on YouTube um but next year I am moving down to third grade so we already knew that we might have to decrease the number of fourth grade teachers for next year because we only had three third grade classrooms and so we have four fourth grade classrooms but with the kids moving up next year there's not enough numbers to have four of us so it's all about geography of the building because I am on this side of the hall where there are two other third grade teachers so it just made sense for me to join the third grade team and to keep all the other fourth grade teachers on the other side of the hall so I am going to be a third grade self-contained meaning I'm teaching all of the subjects again and I've never taught third grade so I'm very excited I mean I have kind of but I've never officially taught third grade so I'm very very excited to be diving into that content next year which is new and crazy so I mentioned that um meet with me going into third grade I did get some of the third grade materials I have a lot of the leveled readers that I did not want to touch and start looking at right now so I just put them up here on the Shelf along with the carpets and everything else I have a map of my classroom I've basically just cleaned off some of these items and again that's really about it I'm gonna see if I can get away with keeping those Choice letters up and just I mean hopefully nobody will notice you think people notice I don't know we'll see so as I mentioned this is it this is the end of the school year it has been a whirlwind of emotions this year and I'm going to be sharing a little reflection next week where I sit down and just kind of talk about transitioning into a new District a new school how the year went overall because there are a lot of things that I didn't really share with you guys that I'm just gonna let it all out how about that so next week stay tuned for that little reflection video but I hope that you guys enjoyed this I apologize for it being a little bit choppy but the week was crazy so that is a wrap for the 2022-2023 school year I hope that you guys have enjoyed this we have a ton of content coming to you guys this summer and we're really really excited about some of the things that we have coming up with the Virginia literacy community and so I'm going to leave some links down in the description if you want to join me in extending some of your learning getting some of those resources together because we have some really really great things happening but until next time guys I will catch you all really really soon bye

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 13,697

Keywords: teacher tips, The Lettered Classroom, classroom decor, first year teacher, classroom setup, classroom organization, a day in the life of a teacher, elementary teacher, middle school teacher, education, how to be a teacher, how to teach, new teacher, teacher youtuber, teacher vlog, weekly teacher vlog, classroom ideas, elementary teacher, classroom inspirations, teacher organization, upper elementary teacher, teacher life

Id: HvALtJyNVFw

Length: 26min 36sec (1596 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023