The school year gets incredibly crazy, so today I am here to share with you ways to save/ keep/ spare your sanity.
1.) Find something that you love to day ... away from work. Yes, you can love your job and the time you spend with your students... but you can ALSO love your time AWAY from work. Love the time you have just for you. I promise that you will find that when you take time out for yourself you end up enjoying your time at work even more. At least that is how it works for me!
I personally LOVE creating resources to use in my own classroom, so I spend a lot of time doing that. I still use many of the products that I created for my 3rd graders with my 5th graders who need extra support, but I am changing the names and/ or adding updated clip art to make it more student-friendly. Over the weekend, I finished a math resource for my current class. I am waiting for it to be proofread by a colleague, then I will be using it with my own students! Once I have edited all goofs out of the product and I am pleased with the student/ teacher sections, I will be posting it onto Teachers Pay Teachers. This particular #sanitysaver is profitable too!
2.) Do good! Karma is real! When you do something good for others, karma reaches out and does something good for you! Feeling good about doing something good for others is what I call Karma... because I am getting something out of it. Some easy ideas for the people around you: (a) write a note to a teachers about something you noticed (positive), (b) write a note to a new teacher, or a new colleague about how happy you are that they are in your school, (c) write a note on a sticky note in give it to a student. Doing good will make you feel good and save your sanity!
3.) Drive with the windows down, and music blasting! I dare you not to sing along and smile! Instant sanity savior!
4.) Doodle/ draw/ paint/ play with play doh or clay... get back to being a like a kid. Put a little color into your life!
The best is yet to come!
Until next time,
Sandra @The Happy Learning Den
Happy Teaching!
Happy Learning!
I LOVE creating engaging learning experiences for my students! One of my favorite ways is to take a learning activity that they have done in previous grades, and change it into something completely different.
The past month my students have been working on creating clocks from paper plates. Now as you know, I teach 5th grade. So this is nothing new for students. In 2nd and 3rd grade students create clocks. They put the 12 at the top, the 6 on the bottom, the 9 goes to the left, the 3 goes to the right, and all the other numbers are filled in. Students practice counting by 5's around the clock in lower grades. They work on quarter hour, half hour, etc in the younger grades too.
I took their knowledge of clocks, and changed it up! They made Numerical Expression Clocks! Students used parentheses, braces, and brackets to make the numbers 1 - 12. That took about 2 weeks and a lot of trial and error for students. However, once they understood ... the light bulbs in their brains were glowing.
Here are some of the completed Numerical Expression Clocks!
The best is yet to come!
Happy Learning! Happy Teaching!
~Sandra @The Happy Learning Den
Teacher gifts can be as surprising as a calm classroom the Friday before a vacation. Some gifts you just could never see coming. But other gifts are sweet and endearing, and show how truly thoughtful and appreciative a student can be. It's those thoughtful gifts: the handwritten notes, the flowers picked on the way to school, the half bottle of favorite perfume, the pack of pencils or box of colorful sharpie markers.... those are the gifts that I cherish... and have received.
Last year one of my students brought me a rock that he found on the way to school. He hand wrote two notes for me, carefully wrapped them in notebook paper and waited for me to open them. Of course I oooohed at how special and beautiful the gesture was. I was really touched...
Then this same child this year (3rd week of school) brought me a flower that he had picked on the way to school along with 2 pencils and 2 pens!
I of course wrote him a thank you note, which I gave to his sister to deliver (she is in one of my classes this year...).
I deeply cherish both gifts. They are thoughtful, and meaningful... It's not Christmas or Hanukah or my Birthday... This is just a thoughtful gesture from one student... one child saying "Thank you."
I just wish you could have seen his face when I told him that I still have the rock from last year. He couldn't believe that I kept it, but really, how could I not?
The truth is, I don't want gift cards for nails or coffee or a local restaurant. The truth is a perfect teacher gift is the hand written note from the student. The rock and flowers are nice too. ;-)
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
I hope you enjoyed it! The best is yet to come...
Happy Learning! Happy Teaching!
~Sandra @ The Happy Learning Den
