A Teacher's Summer

Interspersed with trips to the water park, a short vacation, ball games, and other summer activities, I am already working on next year. And that is the life of a teacher.

What might most teachers be doing in the summer?

*Cleaning out files.  (Sometimes, actually filing all those loose papers we didn't get to during the year. Or is that just me??)

*Weeding out supplies: markers and pens that don't work any more, dried up glue sticks, tape dispensers that have "lost" their inner core, recycling paper and magazines that aren't needed, cleaning out all the excess in cupboards and drawers, and pitching all the lost and found items that weren't claimed.

*Planning for new teaching assignments and making lessons for the first weeks of school. (Three new assignments next year:  Speech, Drama, and Forensics. These require a different kind of planning than Sophomore English, but I'm on the hunt for all kinds of new activities!)

*Researching blogs and websites for new lesson planning ideas or classroom management techniques.  Some favorites:  Edudemic, AchievetheCore, Dr. Curtis Chandler, Edutopia, Teachers.net, ReadWriteThink, and WeAreTeachers.
  (Best resource for finding new ideas: Twitter.)

*Designing needed methods of tracking data (Spreadsheets, Google Docs, etc.)--and it would be oh so helpful if Excel were working this summer.

*Writing shared formative and summative assessments for classes.

*Tweaking class notebooks in English II.  (Between Standard's Based Grading and Interactive Notebooks, I'm not sure which was the best addition to my classes last year.)

If I plan and work now, next year will be much less stressful.

Oh, and I really need to select next spring's All School Production.  If I leave it until after school starts, I will be hunting the show over Christmas Break. Then, I really will be rushed and unprepared at the start of 2nd semester.

June, July, and August.  These days, I consider them an extended Plan Period.