Look Ahead to Next Year with Classroom Decor
Happy Summer! Does anyone else love to look ahead to the next school year during the summer? The planning and dreaming is one of my favorite things! Classroom decor is one of the pieces that I always find myself re-imagining during the summertime. Even if I don’t completely discard my theme from last year, I still like to look around for new pieces to enhance it! Today, I want to share with you some ways that you can use classroom decor to start prepping for next year, during the summer time!
Determine your theme.
Your theme may be a color scheme, or you may have your entire classroom centered around something like the beach, or space, or the jungle.
If you don’t have a classroom theme, and you’d like one, you can peruse all of the different printable classroom decor sets on TeachersPayTeachers! I have several in my store that you can see to give you some inspiration on how you may want to tie your classroom together. After all, we are in our classrooms during the school year more than we are in our own homes, so it’s important that you find the environment soothing and mood-boosting!
Prep what you can now.
Some pieces of a classroom decor kit, or any other decor you may purchase, can be prepped and ready to go over the summer. Other pieces include student names, which you likely don’t know yet. Some pieces that you can start prepping now include:
Supply Labels
Calendar Pieces
Schedule Cards
Alphabet, Number, and Color Posters
Behavior Charts
Library Book Basket Labels
Birthday Displays
Classroom Jobs
Just THINK about what a relief it will be when the fall comes around, and you show up with your hot glue gun, ready to hang things up and be done! Prepping things ahead of time is the biggest life saver during that first, hectic week back to school!
Map Out Your Routines
As you’re prepping things like supply labels and classroom jobs, you can begin thinking about the routines you’ll want to have in your room next year. Many routines may be staying the same from last year, but others may not have worked so well. The summer time is the perfect time to reflect on what you want to keep, and what areas need to be tightened up to preserve your sanity.
As you prep things like supply labels, you can ask yourself questions like:
Do I want students to have community supplies, or keep them in their desks? Do I want students to always have access to all of the supplies, or keep some of them in cabinets?
What classroom jobs do I want to include this year? What times of the day do I want the students to complete their jobs? How will I incentivize students to do their jobs well? How often will I change jobs?
Where will I teach my mini lessons? Does it make sense to have the alphabet and number posters together, or on separate walls for separate lesson areas?
Do I want to put students in teams and work towards certain rewards? Should I create table groups?
As you can see, prepping classroom decor in the summer can inspire a whole list of thoughtful questions that you can ask yourself now to make next year easier!
What kind of classroom prepping do you go through in the summer?
To see all of the classroom decor kits in my TPT store, click the button below to shop!
To download some free subject headers for your daily schedule, click the photo below!
If you need some extra supplies to help you prep from home, check out some of my favorites below! (The following links are affiliate links. If you shop from these links, I may receive a small commission, at no extra charge to you!)
