While wrapping up the school year, there’s a lot of things to check off of your to do list. It can feel overwhelming while thinking about what you need to get done before heading out for summer. In this blog post, we’ll talk about how to go about wrapping up the school year for yourself, your students, and your classroom. Also, make sure you listen to episode 203 of The Elementary Music Teacher podcast where I dive into al of this further.
Yourself
While wrapping up the school year, the first thing to do is to take care of you during the last few weeks. It’s exhausting and the snowball just keeps rolling down the hill while getting bigger and bigger. Look at your calendar and keep all schedules, appointments, programs, talent shows, assemblies, field day, dinner plans with friends as organized as you can.
Also, look forward to something this summer. Circle or highlight a vacation, the last day of school, or a PD you’re looking forward to. When you get a chance, assess where you were at the beginning of the school year and where you are now when it comes to teaching music and all that’s involved with that. You’ve probably come way further than you even realize.
Think about how you need to wrap up the final units you’re teaching. But also, give yourself grace if you didn’t cover every song, activity, or lesson you wanted to this school year. It’s not possible to do that. But, with some backwards planning and simplifying lesson planning. Think through this before you head back to school in the fall.
Your Students
While thinking about wrapping up the school year with your students, plan fun end of the year activities and just accept the fact that things will be crazy. Plan some fun end of the school year activities. Consider doing outside games, a talent show, or even a choice day.
Know how you want to say goodbye to your students, especially your 5th graders or whatever the oldest grade you teach is. Also, have your students do a recap of what they learned this school year or talk about their favorite memories in music this year.
Your Classroom
When wrapping up the school year in your classroom, you’re going to need to think about cleaning up and organizing your room. Before you leave for summer, what materials do you want to keep or giveaway? How do you want to store your instruments over the summer?
Do a classroom audit to think about how you want to set up your classroom for the next school year, what worked and what didn’t, what instruments do you need, how do you want students to sit next year. Also, go through your teaching resources and decide what you enjoyed using and what you’re going to shelf and then organize them accordingly.
Have you worked on reframing your negative thoughts? Tell me about it in the comments below or share your thoughts on social media as you share this post. I’d love for you to share this post or any of the resources on my website with a friend or colleague who you know NEEDS to see it too.
P.S. Are you feeling frustrated or stuck as an elementary music teacher? Check out these free resources to help you teach elementary music with confidence!
Also…I wrote a book called “Make A Note: What You Really Need To Know About Teaching Elementary Music” to help music teachers move forward in your teaching career. You can get your copy here.
