Summer Time

Wow! I can't believe that summer break is almost over. One more week until teachers go back to school and only two more weeks until the kiddos arrive! It has definitely been a busy summer filled with beautiful weather, tons of weddings and good family time.

 Looking back I also realized how much time I spent at school this summer. I know, I know this is the point where people tell me I'm nuts and that I should just enjoy the summer but I found using summer to accomplish some big classroom tasks to be quite worthwhile.

I started the summer by culling and organizing old resources that had been left in my classroom by previous teachers. It is amazing how much stuff can be collected over time and how much of that stuff was left in cupboards for me to find. There were a few items I found to be useful but there was also a bunch of old resources that made their way into the recycling bin. It is hard to get rid of things but it's also so good to free up storage space.

I also used some time this summer to attempt to get ahead on my unit plans for the first few months of the school year. Being a newer teacher I find I still spend a lot of time getting to know the curriculum and developing unit and lesson plans. I'm hoping the result of giving up some of my summer free time will be fewer weekends spent at school over the course of the school year.

 I definitely enjoy heading into the new year feeling prepared and ready to go but I also don't want to get into the habit of filling my summer with lesson planning. Then again I feel like spending a full two months away from school would leave me feeling disconnected from everything. I guess I won't actually be able to test that theory until I try it though. Okay, I am officially rambling about this topic so I'm going to ask you to join in with your opinions. Does anyone else use summer time for planning? Do you think it is a worthwhile use of your time? Do you find it stops the longer you have been teaching?

I would love to hear your thoughts. It would be nice to know if I am a crazy work-a-holic or if this is just what dedicated teachers do with their "free" time. Talk to you soon!