Holiday Activities and Freebies!
You’ve worked hard all year and are ready for a much-needed summer break from the classroom! However, if you’re looking for ways to help your next school year run a little more smoothly, a little bit of summer prep can go a long way! In this post, I’m going to share some simple teacher summer prep ideas that will help you start the year off strong.
I know that there are a lot of opinions about whether or not teachers should do prep work during the summer. It’s definitely not for everyone! However, there are a few reasons why a little bit of summer prep can be very helpful in the long run:
If you want to knock a few things off your to-do list before you get back to your classroom, I have a few suggestions! Prepping these things over the summer will help you have a much easier August as you transition back to school.
One of my favorite things to prep during the summer is the parent handbook that I will be handing out at the Meet the Teacher night. There are so many things to have in place before welcoming students and families into the classroom! By prepping the parent handbook flipbook in advance, it removes a huge task from that to-do list.
Since parent communication is such an important part of a successful school year, you don’t want to risk running out of time to get your parent handbook prepped for Meet the Teacher. I love to have it ready to go for that first contact with parents because it sets the tone for communication and gives families all of the information they need to start the year off on the right foot.
If this is something you’re interested in including in your summer prep this year, you can find my parent handbook flip book in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or in my TPT store.
Centers are such an important part of the kindergarten routine, but they can take quite a bit of prep time that you might not have at the beginning of the school year. By prepping at least the first few sets of centers over the summer, you can be ahead of the curve as the school year starts.
If you have more time available to prep, you could even put together seasonal centers for the whole year! My centers are easy to prep and store so they’re easy to pull out whenever you’re ready to use them. If you’d like to take a closer look at my year-long centers for kindergarten, you can start with the first half of the year with this bundle in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
It can be so helpful to have homework printed and ready to go before the school year starts! Even though it’s mainly copying and storing, it can be really difficult to get to the copy machine when everyone else is trying to do the same thing. Instead, you could use some of your summer prep time to print and assemble homework packets for your students. You can easily file them away until you’re ready to pull them out.
If you don’t use homework in your kindergarten classroom, you could prep your monthly early finisher printables or other seasonal worksheets that you’ll use monthly. My homework printables are easy to repurpose for morning work, early finishers, and more! You can click below to find them in my website shop or on TPT.
Thematic units are a fun learning tool in the kindergarten classroom! A great thing to prep during the summer is your plan for thematic units throughout the year. When you have your themes picked out ahead of time, it’s much easier to get them prepped either during the summer or during the school year. Sometimes choosing is the hardest part, so it’s a lifesaver to get them selected and mapped out before heading back to school.
I have a variety of unit plans that can last you the whole school year! In fact, you can find them all in a money-saving bundle! Head over to my website shop or my TPT store to take a closer look at all of the units included in the bundle.
Help your students hit the ground running with alphabet practice at the beginning of the year! These alphabet books use a predictable format, so they’re the perfect way to introduce letters while students are still getting used to the daily learning routine. These are simple to print, assemble, and store so they’re ready to go whenever you are focusing on that particular letter with your ELA curriculum.
Do you need a set of easy-to-prep alphabet practice books? You can find them in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or in my TPT store.
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! You’ll be able to find these resources when you’re ready to prepare for a successful school year!
