teacher tips
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Leaning into what brings me joy
I got a little vulnerable with you on Monday – this time of year is tough. The pressure to jump back into a routine after the holidays, when I’m not really ready for that, causes some friction. Add the dreary weather and joy can be a little hard for me to come by. I’m working through it by leaning into the things that I know bring me joy – a “Joy List” if you will! Whenever I’m feeling a little down – whether it’s because I’m burnt out at work, clouds and cold are impacting my mood, or I’m just in need of a pick me up – I like…
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Finding the Joy
This is the time of the year that’s the most difficult for me – the happiness of the holiday season is over and I feel like I’ve been thrown back into work without actually getting the rest and relaxation that I’d been so looking forward to. It’s burnout at it’s finest. Plus the weather is gray and dreary, which never helps. This is the month when I have to be truly intentional about finding my purpose in the work that I do so that I can enjoy it. The real question is, how do I do that??? There’s not an exact science to it – I’ve tried a variety of…
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Ask for donations – and actually get them!
Let me paint a picture – You have this great activity planned and you can’t wait for the children to get really creative with it, so you make a list of materials that you need and hand it out to all of the parents with a deadline for their classroom donations. That deadline comes and you’ve received 1 or two items off your list. Now you have a choice, do you cross the activity off your list or find another way to secure the materials you need – even if it means buying them yourself? Raise your hand if this has happened to you – is your hand raised? Mine…
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All the Dollar Store Love
My family went camping this weekend – it was cold and rainy – but I planned ahead. A couple of weeks ago I went to the dollar store (in this case the Dollar Tree) and spent $25 on toys for my daughter – it was $25 well spent, I picked up balls, play dough, plastic animals, dolls, and sand toys. All of these items can get as dirty as she wants them to, and if we lose them or break them, I’m totally fine with it. This is not my first experience with dollar store awesomeness, as a teacher it was my best (and most regularly visited) source for materials. …
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Making the most of planning time
Has it hit you yet? You know, the end-of-the-school-year-don’t-want-to-do-anything mood? Planning is always the hardest for me at the end of the year, my mind wanders, there are about a million things to do, and I really just want to spend the entire day outside. This is the point in the year where I lean heavily on my planning systems to use my time as effectively as possible. Here are some of the things that always help: Recipes for the Classroom – All kinds of dough, sand, bubble, and paint recipes! Seasonal Party Sign-ups and Reminders – to help get me through the final events of the year A Year…
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5 Tips for Staying Organized
I read an article the other day – well, I don’t know if you could call it an article, it was more like one of those click-bait-ey facebook links where the content is only as important as whatever it takes to get you to see all of the ads. But that’s not the point. Anyway, it was titled “Habits of highly organized people.” As I read it I found myself saying “I do that” over and over, which I guess means I’m highly organized. The habits included in that particular article were a little vague though, so I thought I would share some of my organizational habits with you –…
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Under the weather
I’m pretty sure that it is the weather this week, but I have been in a nasty funk. This never-ending migraine and consuming desire to crawl back in bed have really put a damper on my holiday-loving attitude. When I’m not feeling well (but not quite sick enough to stay home), I’ve found that it generally best to let my students in on the fact that I’m a little under the weather. Preschoolers are just beginning to understand empathy – there are plenty of adult issues that they just can’t comprehend, but they know how awful if is to feel sick. When my students know that I’m a little under…
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10 Tips for Building Relationships with Families
When I started “Family February” I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to write that many posts about one topic – I should’ve known better. Not only are families a huge piece of the work that we do – because children’s lives are so highly influenced by the experiences of their families – but I also love love love family engagement. I know it’s technically March, but I want to wrap up my Family February with a little bit of a summary. So here are 10 tips for building those relationships with families: Be available – If a family member needs to talk to you find a…
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Ideas for sharing newsletters
It’s a fairly common problem, you print a copy of the classroom newsletter for each child and stick it in their mailbox, and then at the end of the year you clean out their mailboxes only to find all of those newsletters still in there. It’s no wonder the parents had no idea what was happening all year long! This frustrating problem is made even worse by knowing just how much time you spent writing each of those newsletters! I’ve sen this scenario play out time and time again – in my own classroom, and with a number of teachers that I work with, so unfortunately you are not alone.…
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Ways to make lesson planning easier!
I’m one of those weird teachers – you know, the ones who love lesson planning. I love every part of it – analyzing what my student needs, finding new ideas, writing the plans, prepping materials – I love it! I’ve also come up with a number of ways to make lesson planning easier. Since many of you have probably begin to think about your first few weeks of the school year, and the rest of you are probably preparing to do things a little differently in the fall, I want to share some of the things that have been most helpful for me. The one thing that has been the…
