ESY Classroom Tour - Simply Special Ed

Are you teaching ESY, or extended school year, this summer? I am! Let me show you a small glimpse of my classroom for our five weeks of ESY! Mind you, my space is limited due to the custodian’s cleaning schedules, but we make the best of it!

Creating an ESY Schedule

Choosing a theme and wondering how you will decorate your classroom is a very exciting part of planning for ESY, however, it is crucial to start with creating a schedule! You’ll notice above that my schedule is very simple. At this point, I’m not ready to plan out specific center groups. I just want a rough outline of a schedule. I need to know how many students and paras I’ll have before I can plan for specific center rotations!

You can read more about how I create my ESY schedule here!

ESY Plans

Once I’ve created a schedule, I plan out what my weeks will look like. For my district, we do two days per week for five weeks. You’ll notice on my ESY plans that I have my days marked with an M or a W or both for what I’m teaching on which days. Sometimes for ESY, I choose a theme. This summer I chose Sharks as my theme for teaching the students, while maintaining their IEP goals. If I don’t choose a theme, I use SSE’s ESY Plans! Seriously, these are amazing! This includes 8 weeks of materials PLANNED FOR YOU for the entire summer!

Classroom Setup

As far as classroom setup goes for the summer, I try to keep it as similar to the setup during the school year as I can. However, during ESY I have less support staff in the classroom, so this makes center rotations a little more difficult. This means I cut down on one or two center rotations, and add more independent work or calm corner time, depending upon the student. I am sure to include a main schedule somewhere so everyone is able to view it. You can get these schedule pieces here!

Have Fun!

After you have your room and schedule set up, it’s time to start having fun! Plan a fun theme or activities for your students while maintaining their IEP goals. I am usually able to do more whole-group types of activities during the summer, and the students love it! I get out or find new sensory items or toys for the classroom, and do fun science or cooking activities with them.