I posted on facebook the other day that this was my 8th year teaching, my first year as a working mama, my first year teaching part time, and the end of teaching while also being a student myself. In the few weeks since I turned in my final final final copy of my dissertation, I've had more free time on my hands than I've had in as long as I can remember. There is absolutely nothing hanging over my head that needs to get done. No homework. No deadlines. No paper that needs to get written or edited. I can't say that I've used my time really wisely in the past few weeks because I haven't taken up exercising yet and my house still isn't super clean. There's still a big pile of laundry and I haven't cooked any super fabulous gourmet dinners. I've watched a little too much TV and I've read 3 books so far, but none of them had anything to do with teaching.
I'm still super busy chasing after Baby Sneaker who is busier than a bee, but I have this urge to find a new project. It's stressful to be super busy, yet I do need a certain level of busyness to feel productive and content. Now that I don't have a dissertation to write, I feel like I finally have the free time to do more work with my Kindergarten curriculum and finally make things align better and make more sense. I brought home almost all of my teaching manuals so that I can spend some time this summer rearranging the math curriculum around the common core strands and so I can familiarize myself with the new reading adoption. Once I am more familiar with the new reading curriculum, I want to plan our science lessons around the reading content and stories we'll read next year.
I am excited to do this work and feel like each year I "own" what I teach just a little bit more. And, I can't wait to set up my classroom again because I love to change things up every year. That will have to wait until August though. I do want to enjoy summer and have some time to just relax and enjoy the various Housewife cohorts as well as the Bachelorette. I want to read books that don't require a lot of thinking. And, I want to enjoy spending the entire days will Baby Sneaker. I am looking forward to lingering over my morning coffee and to spending more than 30 seconds in the bathroom at a time. I am excited for play dates with my friends' little ones and I may even sleep past 7 AM if Baby Sneaker cooperates.
What are you looking forward to this summer?
1 comment:
Seriously, how do I become friends with you on facebook? I can never find you haha.
You SERIOUSLY accomplished a LOT this year! I don't know if anyone has been a working mom who ALSO finished their doctorate. So amazing!
I am not done with the school year and feeling SO burnt out. It was a really, really hard year for me, definitely one of the top hardest yet. I am really hoping that the universe repays me with an easy class next year and I can actually focus on some curriculum stuff. The week after school ends I'm going to a training for a new math program we are going to use, which I am the K teacher leader for in my district (yikes), and I'm doing some work on the writing curriculum. After that I'm going to just tutor but not worry about my class for at least a month or so haha.
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