The Secret Formula for Ending the Year Strong as an Elementary Teacher

So the end of the year is upon you, which leaves you with one question: How in the world can you end 2023 strong in the classroom?

As teachers, we get stuck wondering things like“How do I keep the kids engaged?” or “How do I fit in all the curriculum I need to teach during the holiday excitement?”.

When you’re unsure what to do, it’s hard to lead your class from an empowered, heart-centered place. It’s not just you - we have all been there. 

The good news is, you can easily bring order to the chaos by planning your end of year activities and curriculum ahead of time with intentionality.

In this post, I’ll define what makes the end of year productive for you and your students (this sets up next semester in a huge way), plus provide 3 steps you can integrate into your process to finalize your lesson plans now. I hope that this will give you a roadmap so you can finalize your end of year plan and stop stressing so you can enjoy the holidays.

What is the The Secret Formula to Ending the Year Strong as an Elementary Teacher?

WHAT ALLOWS FOR ENDING THE YEAR STRONG? 

• Feeling like you have supported your students in their learning and social-emotional growth.
• Feeling like your classroom systems are organized and ready to ease back into the new year.
• Feeling like your classroom family is tight-knit and comfortable sharing with one another and supporting each other during moments of conflict
• Feeling like you have your lesson plans and curriculum planned ahead for your return so you can make the most out of relaxing for the upcoming well-deserved break.

In other words: 

There are 3 simple steps you can take now to guide your class and yourself through to create an environment of connection, clarity as you move into break - and when you come back.

The added benefit is that you can use this system each year before Winter and Summer break to feel grounded and on track before you come back in the new year.

Reflect and Evaluate: - The First Ingredient

Reflecting and evaluating will help you see where you’re succeeding and where you need to improve (if you’re part of the Heart-Centered Classroom programs, you know how important reflection is to us!).

This is a crucial component because reflecting on your classroom’s strengths, lessons, activities and weaknesses is vital for ending the year strong.

Many people who are new to end of year planning start out on the right track but then get stuck because the end of the year is, well, chaotic. Even the best teachers feel like they are hanging on by a thread before most breaks. 

And then they wind up wasting time, getting overwhelmed and feeling guilty looking back on what they did because they feel they didn’t have space to lead as their best selves for the class.  

The key to feeling satisfied and grounded at the end of the year is to evaluate your classroom’s current environment, what they respond to, and then doing more of that to engage them. 

To get started here, analyze each student’s progress since the start of the year. What allowed for that? What felt best? Why do you think you got those results? 

Celebrate Achievements - The Second Ingredient

Celebrating your (and your students’) achievements will transform your classroom environment. After analyzing what worked, you can shift from knowing what was successful to doing more of what worked easily with celebrating your students.

If you’ve spent hours establishing a behavior management system but something still feels off – like you’re not getting compliant students, this is likely the piece that’s missing. 

Without celebrating, you can create an incentive party or throw on a movie and still not end the year strong.​​ 

What can you do?

A really useful tool for celebrating successes is implementing a Shares Circle practice to the end of each school day leading up to break (this is an exercise we talk about specifically in the toolkit programs). With Share Circles the teacher and class (over the course of the school day) look for students going “above and beyond” when it comes to behavior, and social-emotional skills. At the end of the day, the teacher gathers students around the whole group meeting area (in this case our carpet space) - and the teacher announces their “spotlight student” for the day. The “spotlight student” is the student they noticed going above and beyond. They then explain why they selected this person (teacher is modeling for students here) - and then students are able to go around and “spotlight” someone in the class they noticed and provide recognition/appreciation for that person. I have a video that demonstrates this practice for you, too! Click here to watch it.  

If this is something you want to do, I also have an End of Year Award format you can use if you want to feel more *official*! Click here to check it out. 

Plan for Closure and Transition - The Third Ingredient

The most important part of a seamless end of year plan is closure and prepping for transition into the second half of the year personally, alongside your students. The more clarity you are finishing with, the more confidence they will feel going into next semester alongside you.

Here’s where you’ll really start to feel the strong end of the calendar year.

Of course, this will take some time. Consider what you wrote in your reflection and evaluation from Step 1. What was easy to celebrate? What did you feel you wanted to do more of to feel more successful in the second part of the year? As you define the answers to these questions, think through how you can tie up those loose ends in your lesson plans for the beginning of the year. 

Additionally, to support yourself and allow you to fully check out for the holiday break, you will want to do check-in with yourself and everything on your plate. Once you know what you need to do, it makes it easier to organize it and check out yourself. Plus, this helps to eliminate the back-to-school anxiety, in my experience. 

The approach you can use to close out and transition into the new year is:

• Thoroughly review your lesson plans and identify any outstanding tasks or incomplete topics.
• Then prioritize these loose ends based on their significance and impact on overall understanding.
• Then, in order to ensure a smooth transition to the next year, just devote a set amount of time to address and resolve each loose end. Prioritize priorities, and add anything that doesn’t need to be done to next year’s to-do list. 

Once you’re done,  you’ll be well on your way to a strong end to this year, and a smooth transition into the year ahead. 

Putting it All Together for Your Perfect End of Year Plan as an Elementary Teacher 

There you have it! The 3 components of your perfect end of year plan. 

It may sound like a lot, but like most things, practice makes perfect. Just focus on building up your students and supporting yourself - you all have done great work this year. This will help you remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, celebrate how far you have come, and will prepare you and your kiddos for an exciting new year.

What’s next? Join my Before the Break FREE Email Challenge! 

If you need help getting started, my Before the Break Email Challenge will help you plan for break without stress so you can engage your classroom while you finish this year strong.

Here is the link to join the Before the Break Email Challenge!