This school year seems to have flown by, with the summer holidays now only a few short months away. Before your classroom is packed away though and left empty for a few weeks, there is still the summer term to enjoy.
If you haven’t yet, here are some of the key things you should start doing now to ensure that your classroom is ready for the summer term.
Get Ready for Outdoor Lessons
One of the biggest joys of the summer term for students and teachers alike is the opportunity to move lessons outdoors – provided that the British weather plays along. From seasonal science lessons to den building and outdoor physical education classes, the warmer months of the year provide a change of scenery that can be equally challenging and rewarding.
Although we’re not lucky enough to be enjoying temperatures warm enough for outdoor lessons just yet, now is the perfect time to do some spring cleaning and ensure that all of your outdoor classroom furniture is up to scratch. By inspecting any seasonal furniture now, you have plenty of time to reorder any pieces that are no longer fit for use, with plenty of time for them to arrive before you will need to use them.
There are plenty of other resources and supplies you can take outdoors aside from furniture to really make the most of these lessons. Don’t forget to also invest in some den making supplies, if you don’t already have some in your class, as this is a particularly popular activity with young learners and primary school classes.
Switch Up Your Classroom Displays
When it comes to the classroom itself, changing seasons can only mean one thing – it’s time to switch out your seasonal classroom displays. Any winter-themed display board should be long gone by now, but if they aren’t, now is the perfect time to take them down. While spring-themes classroom displays are not out of season just yet, you should start slowly but surely working towards a summer-y theme across all of your classroom notice boards and displays.
Stuck on ideas for how to inject some summer into your displays? Thankfully, there are plenty of little things you can switch up. Even if you just start small by adding some seasonal quotes or poems to get your students excited about the sunny months to come. You can also get your students involved by turning this into a class project where everyone contributes something to a collaborative display. This will not only get all of your students excited about what they will be learning about in the summer term, but it also saves you the job of redoing all of your classroom displays and noticeboards by yourself.
Stock Up on Warm Weather Essentials
Now is also a good time for you to inspect your supplies, making sure that you are all stocked up on both classroom supplies and warm weather essentials that you and your students will likely need.
It never hurts to have some extra SPF on hand, especially if you will be taking some of your lessons outdoors, along with some other summer essentials like bug spray, and plenty of ice packs.
When it comes to actually classroom supplies, you can never have too much chalk in the summer, as students will no doubt make use of them in both outdoor lessons and during breaks, creating their own works of art on the playground.
Update Your Lesson Plans
It’s not just your classroom that needs to be up to scratch for summer – it’s also worth looking over all of your lesson plans to see where you can make seasonal changes in order to better engage your students.