More End of Year Tips {Linky}

There were a lot more tips that I wanted to include in {yesterday's Bright Ideas post}, but we were supposed to keep the posts short and sweet. So I decided to tell you more today! You can even link up your own end-of-the-year ideas!!

Thank you to the fabulous Theresa at Pinkadots for making me a button!

This may pain some of you to read. Feel free to close your eyes. I go through practically everything once in the fall and once in the spring and purge. Even though I have plenty of storage space (which is a luxury, I know), I just can't justify hanging on to things that I have no intention of using. Or that I have intentions of using and never do. All of my lesson plans from 1999? I finally let go of all of them except last year's. The literacy worksheets from two curriculums ago now that I no longer teach lit? Gave them to the teacher who actually wanted them.


Now, there were a few instances this spring as I was gutting my two filing cabinets when I wasn't quite ready to part with some of the materials. I let those stay. I tend to go with the two-year rule. If I haven't looked at it or even thought about it in the past two years, it's gone. That might be a little ambitious for some of you. Maybe some of you would prefer a five-year rule. Whatever works. I'm not the boss of you ;) Anyway, sometimes there are still things that I can't let go, but haven't used for a really, really long time. In that case, if I can scan it to my computer, I go that route and recycle it.

Which leads me to my next tip...

Retiring teachers. These lovely people who have been-there, done-that have a wealth of information that they are more than willing to share. However, they also have a ton of stuff that they no longer need that they want to unload. On you. That does NOT mean that you have to take it! If you can't think of how you would use something, just... say... no. Or, if you are like my passive-aggressive self, you will hang on to it for two years and then feel guilty about throwing it in the trash/recycling bin. (Luckily, no one in my building is retiring this year!)

Clipart from Educlips

Now let's talk storage. My personal favorites are clear tubs, binders, and magazine holders (IKEA has really cheap ones at 5 for $2 or something insane like that). They just make everything so much easier to find.




What end-of-the-year organizational tips do you have? Comment below, or write a blog post to add to the linky! (No products, please.)





Bright Ideas - End of Year Tip


I'm SO excited to be a part of this month's Bright Ideas Blog Hop! I'm going to share one of my ideas that will help you get your classroom organized as the end of the year draws near.

Often I have ideas on how I want to do things the next year. Either something was awesome and I don't want to forget, or I have ideas on tweaking what I've done. Since I'm a visual person, I like to take pictures to remind me. So I need to change this board:


If I will have 150 social studies students next year, I will need to have more No Name and Absent clothespins. I want to move the Missing Work to the other board in my room, and I want to remove the NLWC because I ended up doing that on a bulletin board.


Other changes since I probably won't be teaching ELA.

So I take a picture, put it in Word or PPT and note the changes I want to make, and save it on my computer in a folder labeled Next Year. Or, you could also create a pin of the picture and note the changes in the description and pin it to a secret board in Pinterest. Gotta use those secret boards for something ;)


I have many more end-of-the-year tips that I plan to share in the next couple of days. I invite you to follow me on {Bloglovin'}, {Facebook}, and {TpT} for more ideas!


For more bright ideas from more than 130 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!