Keep Your Sanity!

How do you make it through the week? Do you think that it NEVER ends? Are you finding that there is no home during the school year?

Are you tired of it? I am!

I want to make this year so much easier. I only have “one” duty after school, and that’s getting my degree. However, it still feels like there are a BAGILLION things on the to-do list. So, I wanted to share my plans with you on how I want to make it easier. I came up with periods of time to get things done.

The periods I have designated are:

Before school (30 minutes)

Planning (45 min. with transition a day)

After school (45 minutes)

Home time

Now, you know just like I know, that my planning time will be eaten up A LOT of the time, however, I can account for most of the time.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Before School	Organize copies for the week	Gather items for tomorrows PLC	Grade papers with feedback	Write a Friday note to the kids to surprise them.	Enter data to Aimsweb
Planning	IEP Meetings or Grading papers	Grading Papers	PLC	Planning with team	Enter data to Aimsweb
After School	Lesson Planning	Lesson Planning	Lesson Planning	Newsletter Creation	Make copies for next week

This is my idea anyway! I’m sure something will come around to mess it up, but I think that it’s a good start!

Now at home, I have a routine that I started last year that really was working for me. Instead of just cleaning everything on Saturday morning, I just break it up. 

My husband is a chef, so we have a menu for our food for the week. I coupon, so I make sure that we get it on the cheap. If you want to see our menus on a weekly basis (and the coupons to make it even EASIER on the wallet) you can check them out at Coupon Culinarian.

In the morning some things are the same:

·        Start breakfast

·        Put dishes away as breakfast cooks

·        (Take out the garbage if needed as you go to the car!)

In the afternoon some things are the same:

·        1 load of laundry

·        Put dinner on

·        Fold/put away laundry from the dryer

·        Put the dishes into the dishwasher

·        Wipe down the counters

·        Put leftovers in the fridge in small containers for lunches for the next day.

·        Take time for myself and the hubby!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Before School	(Just get to school!)	(Just get to school!)	Take the garbage to the street	(Just get to school!)	(Just get to school!)
After School	Sweep the floor	Nothing-it’s a school night!!	Mop the floor!	Dust the living room	Clean the bathroom.
The weekends are for the other areas of the house (and outside).

It’s amazing how once you get on the routine how things move so smoothly. If you have unexpected guests that pop in—or follow you from school for a planning party- then you don’t have to worry. It’s all taken care of!

What do you do to keep yourself sane?

I'm still here!

I know I have been missing in action. School has been in full swing now. We have finished our first running records and are working on the AIMSweb testing. It drives me crazy that we have sooo much testing already and we are in the first 4 weeks of school!! I learned this summer, however, to really dig into the data and read it. I’ve been able to identify the reading strategies that my students need to work on! I’m very excited.

We began our centers this week without the guided reading center. I wanted to start, but I really needed to know that my students could get started and work on their own. It’s gone pretty well. I chose to only do three centers this year.

1.   Computer center. Students log onto kidblog to post a response every week. Then they log onto NoRedInk to practice their grammar skills using characters from the media as their subjects in the sentences. Finally (for now) they will log onto Learn2Earn and they log their reading and create responses based on their readings. They earn coins for their participation to purchase things at the Owl store! It’s pretty awesome. They do a respond to a generic prompt for their book, and then you can score it and give feedback! 

2.   Read to self. Right now, students are going there to just read. Next week, I’ll add a writing portion for them to reflect on their reading. 

3.   Word study. Students have a word study journal. They create a unit page that tells their pretest score, their words for the unit, and then they have several pages that they complete in their journal. (Word sort, sentences, etc…) They create flash cards and put them on a ring so they have their cards to practice where ever they go!

They are starting to get the flow down. We just need a few more days of practice!

Last Tuesday, I went back to school! I am taking classes to get my Master’s with a Reading Specialist license. It’s very overwhelming, however I have a great support system for this journey. If all goes well, then I will graduate in the fall of 2017. It’s going to be a long 2 years, but I will be a proud graduate of Carson-Newman College!!

How’s school going for you?!