How to Guarantee a Restful Break
Or whatever break it might be: spring break, summer break, or winter break. No matter what, your coworkers, your students, and your friends need you happy, healthy, and rested!
Maybe Spring Break is just a few wakeups away, or perhaps you’re counting down the days till summer. . You might even be starting to hear bells-a-ringing and smell peppermint hot chocolate as you prepare for winter break. No matter the break, it’s critical that the time you spend away from school is time spent relaxing, repairing, and taking care of yourself - NOT working on school (I’ll work on my store, but only because that’s so much fun!).
Preparing for your break is just as important as preparing for any other part of teaching, if not more important. These pro-tips will help you get organized before the break, be prepared for returning from break, and make sure that you go home feeling rested and not anxious about anything at school.
1. PLAN FOR THE RETURN
Right now as I write this post, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and believe it or not, I’m already starting to think about January. Seriously. I know how this semester is ending (finals, etc), but the start of second semester always looks a little different year to year. Between now and Thanksgiving, I need to make an important decision: what will I be teaching the first five days after break? Once I’ve decided, it's time to write materials, print, and copy everything! This is by far the biggest anxiety-reducing step you can take. Not sure what to do? Here are some possible ideas:
First day back: REFLECT. No one ever wants to be in school this day, so don’t try to force something too tough. There are hundreds of great reflection/new year types of lessons all over the internet and on Teachers Pay Teachers, so go find a favorite and COMMIT.
Try teaching “How to Be a Person”! It’s a great poem that has kids reflecting on the kind of person they want to be as they reset their attitudes for a new school year. Here’s a blog post with free lesson plans!
Start building historical background and context for a new unit. Planning a few days for a relevant documentary and some stations for student-centered learning would be relatively easy to knock out now!
Have a SOCRATIC SEMINAR! Here are the plans that we use with summer reading and returning to class and my typical plans for the first ten days of school.
2. PLAN YOUR END OF SEMESTER GRADING TIMES
When do you plan on grading your finals? What about the last assignments of the semester? Consider actually scheduling the time when you plan on accomplishing each of these tasks. If you leave it up to chance or “when you feel like it”, you’re not only never going to “feel like it”, but you’ll end up feeling like you’re drowning. Here are some helpful tips:
Make deadlines work for YOU. My students are turning in their final essay of the semester on a very specific day that works for me. I picked a day that I know I have time to grade (both in my school and personal life -- I’ve put it on my family calendar and my husband will be taking the kids to grandma’s that Saturday morning!) Scheduling this time helps me knock the grading out in just one or two focused sittings, rather than scattered times that make me feel like it will never get done. Here’s more on how I plan out my grading process…
Use rubrics that WORK. Yep...my kids are writing a paper for their final exam, but YEP, I’m also using a single point rubric that they know, understand, and are prepared to see in the grade book.
3. START INDIVIDUAL STUDENT TASKS EARLY
Need to write report card comments? Planning to give students a personalized gift or goodbye of some sort? No one said you need to wait until the end of the semester to get these things started. It’s made such a huge difference for me to get my report card comments done before Thanksgiving (or at least underway) so that when that final to-do list comes around right before the end of the semester, I already have one big item ready to check-off the list. I will occasionally make minor updates, but if you’ve been teaching longer than a few years, you know that the comments you make about a student aren’t really going to change between November and December, except for a few special cases.
4. CONFIRM FINAL ASSESSMENT DETAILS AND PREP
What’s the final assessment? What’s the final exam? Where is the answer key? Which kids will be using extended time or other testing accommodations? Ask questions like these early, get answers, and get going! Fill up your planner with the important details, make your exam copies, and take a deep breath.
5. PLAN SOMETHING FUN TO CUT THE STRESS
For the winter break, I make sure to keep my room cozy and jolly all throughout December, no matter how stressed out we all are. I have a blog post about how I keep the mood festive and I also have a super fun activity where students create stockings to represent their favorite character in literature. With the YouTube fireplace rolling and our character stockings hung, December isn’t too painful.
For the end of the school year, we do a “Final Lines in Literature Countdown” with paper chains up until the last day of school. With each passing day, we read a different last line from a famous work of literature and discuss the type of ending it is and rank our favorites.
I wish you the best of luck as you prepare yourself for a restful school break. You deserve this time off and we need you rested and ready to go when you get back! With everything graded before you walk out the door and five days worth of plans ready and copied for when you return, I guarantee your break is going to feel magnificent, and there will be no Sunday scaries the night before your return!
