It’s time to get organized for April and making the most of the home stretch to summer! Let’s see if Teach Junkie can help break down some spring essentials as your personal teacher’s assistant. {wink} So, let’s take a day to really plan and organize your fantastic self. Here are some of the things to do!
How To Organize
1. With this time of the year many public school teachers are feeling the crunch of standardized state tests. If you’re don’t have it down in your lesson plans – get it scheduled in now since it’ll be a huge chunk of your week’s normal plans out the window. You’ll want to schedule in fun and relaxed items for after on the testing days to help keep the week light and yummy and fun encouragement goes a long way too!
2. Create a list of your priorities from now until May. What are your must-do’s before the year begins to close out? What did you want to sneak in but will have to keep on the back burner for now? Prioritizing your list now will help you stay focused during lesson planning with your decisions on what to do already done!
3. Store extra copies of your classroom labels in an organized way. You’ll be glad when summer or back to school time rolls around that you’ve got them on hand. If you teach students old enough to help, let someone sort and organize them into a binder for you.
Gifts and Events
4. Start prepping your thank you gifts for parent volunteers. You’ll love being on the lookout for these gift items when you see them on sale and when you have an extra minute on an upcoming work day you can get a few done to stash away for the end of the year!
5. Looking ahead towards May, Mother’s Day is coming. Have you picked out a project or gift for your students to make? Here is a collection of 28 Mother’s Day gifts and ideas that are sure to wow while not being too time consuming. Pick out your project now so you know if it’s a one day project or make take a little more prep.
Personal Assistant
6. Plan something creative. I love reminding you to do this for yourself each month! What will inspire you to be the best you? Upcycle an old mason jar as a toothbrush holder or plan some time to get funky with those photos you took last month. Steal away a snippet of time for yourself by planning it in to renew you.
7. Change it up by freshening up your own teacher space. Pull in a new family photo, pop of color or put some fresh garden flowers in a vase on your desk. Remind yourself that newness is coming and summer is on it’s way with a little change.
April Fool’s Activities for Teachers
8. April Fools Lirpaloof Teacher Practical Joke Activity – Because we deserve a really good joke that works in the classroom.
Here is else what the Teach Junkie community has to share:
I wrote our schedule and morning message backwards. The kids thought it was funny having “dismissal” at 8:30 AM! It kept them entertained all day, as they tried to follow the mixed up times/events. – Stacey C.
I had my students waving carrots in search of the lirpaloof bird it took them forever to figure out it was April fool spelt backwards! I rewarded them with cupcakes for being such good sports! – Heather W.
Try this new site…..say goodbye to IPADS….http://www.google.com/landing/nose/
A student told me she brought brownies for the class. She had them wrapped in foil. When we had time to eat them, I told her she could pass them out. She walked around handing out pieces of paper on which she had written the letter E in brown, so BROWN Es! The kids and I cracked up. – Claire W-S.
9. April Fools Math Journal Prompts – Create a mini-book of prompts or select the ones that’ll work for your class. There are five math prompts that cover number writing, addition, subtraction, graphs and comparison for second or third grade.
Worksheets for April
10. Make your time spent on rhyming count with these free Easter Rhyming Cards. Students play using a memory style set of cards to make matches.
11. You won’t be sorry that you checked out this creative list of 16 Spring and Easter Math Ideas that includes free printables and hands-on activities to support your common core math standards.
12. Break out the Adding Integers With Peeps Cool Math Game so that your upper grade level students can have a little Easter fun too.
13. 6 Spring ELA Word Work Activities makes figuring out how to bring themed work into your classroom word work time a little easier.
Earth Day Resources
14. April will fly by, and the 22nd will be here before you know it! Here are 7 Fast Activities for Earth Day and Printables to make celebrating Earth Day fast and simple.
15. Add an Earth Day themed Spring Poem for Children along with other poetry ideas to celebrate National poetry month.
16. Teaching the 3 R’s with this Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Game. Sort items and move your way around the game board.
End of the Year and May is coming up next! Be sure to share your tip or idea by uploading it to the Teach Junkie community so we can ooh and ahh over it! {wink}
What helps you be prepared for spring and the imminent end of the school year?
Let me know below in the comments or we message about it on the Teach Junkie Facebook page. I love to hear from you and really want to help you plan your month. {that way I can have your back!}
Leslie {aka the original Teach Junkie} loves learning new things to make teaching easier and more effective. She enjoys featuring creative classroom fun when she's not designing teacher shirts, making kindergarten lesson plans or planning her family's next trip to Disney World.