How do you feel about summer?

If you live in the South, you are feeling my pain today. Summer is more than half over; teachers come back to school on July 27. Where has the time gone? I am especially nervous about this school year because I will miss the entire first quarter for maternity leave. While this is a special time, I will be very anxious about what is going on in my classroom and excited to get back. I think of this as a positive thing; I must love my job! This is definitely the right profession for me.

So how do you know if teaching is right for you? Are YOU in the right profession? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you get excited about the upcoming school year or do you dread it? I know we will all miss our summer break, but some part of you should relish the excitement of a new year. What other profession gets a fresh start every year?

2. Did you go into teaching because you didn't know what else to do? When you made your decision to teach, I hope it wasn't because you weren't sure what else to do. "I've always loved -------, so I guess I will be a ------- teacher." "I'd like to be off when my children are, so I guess I will be a teacher." These are not viable reasons for going into a career that profoundly affects so many lives.

3. Do you want to be better? Do you constantly look for ways to improve? Does the thought of new methods, technologies, ideas, etc., get you excited about how you could be better in the classroom or do you roll your eyes when someone mentions learning something new?

These are just some things to think about as you prepare for the rapidly approaching school year! After all, we require our students to work in the summer (via summer reading at our school), shouldn't we be doing the same?

Eeek....I'm behind!

If you scroll and see my last post, you can see it was in April 2015! Eeek! I have definitely fallen off the wagon. In my defense, it was a crazy, busy year. I started coaching the Varsity Cheerleaders (in addition to Student Council, being a part-time assistant administrator, mom, teacher, etc.) and found out in November that we are expecting baby #4.

I want to start fresh, and I am doing so as part of a summer learning challenge series. I did this series a couple of years ago and it was very beneficial to my personal growth as a teacher. I challenge you to do the same!

The first challenge this summer is to post about our favorite classroom activity of this past year. I have to pick just one? That is tough! My students love Plickers, so that is always fun. Just reading with them in class and seeing them GET it and discuss is fun. I have to say that my favorite activity was using our new TouchJet TouchPond projectors. They are like smart boards, only cheaper. Actually, they are more like smart phones that project on the wall. The students were amazed and wanted to participate every time I used it. I love to see them get engaged, and this little device helped with that.

If you are interested in joining the summer learning challenge, you can find out more here: https://youtu.be/Uese-Dc-YJI.