8 Lessons To Look Forward To Before & After Winter Break

Middle school and high school students are full of energy in the days leading up to winter break AND the days after it. Work with that excitement rather than against by planning a few days before and/or after winter break to engage in some seasonal lessons. Because, hey! secondary students deserve to have fun just as much as elementary school students. These 8 resources connecting to Christmas, New Years, and the winter season will channel students' energy into engagement.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in December

My predictions about November being over in the blink of an eye were correct and now we're into December! Perhaps because October was a nightmare of a month for me (my entire household had Covid and I missed nearly 3 weeks of school), November seemed easy breezy in comparison. I also feel incredibly fortunate that my school has invested in building substitutes so my colleagues and I are not constantly covering classes the way I know so many other educators are right now. 

The biggest positive change for me though was a more relaxed approach to our 3 feet apart rule to allow for temporary student groupings. Students can't sit in groups permanently, but I am now allowed to have a group of students move their desks together while I work with them and then move their desks apart when we're finished. This was especially helpful during the essay writing we just finished up. Prior to this change, all of my teaching was either whole class or one on one, and I am a small group kind of gal. My preferred method of instruction is the station rotation model.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in November

Just when I though we were settling into routines, I had a nearly three week absence in early October due to Covid-19. Despite being vaccinated and being cautious as possible, the virus spread from my husband to one of my daughters to me and finally my other two daughters. Fortunately my husband and I had mild symptoms and my three daughters, all too young to be vaccinated, were asymptomatic. Teachers always joke that writing lesson plans is worse than calling out sick, but being sick, solo parenting while quarantining, AND writing lesson plans for 12 days definitely was a whole 'nother level of stress. We're gradually getting back in the swing of things at home and at school. This month will bring benchmark testing, the book fair, and Thanksgiving Break, and I feel like before I blink November will be over too.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in October

After a choppy start (we didn't have a full five day week of school until the fourth week of school), I finally feel like I'm settling into routines with my classes. What I'm most excited about this school year is how many students are excited about reading. Independent reading is now part of our daily routine at the start of class (I struggled to commit to that this year, but the start of class is what works best for me and the flow of my lessons). I have a variety of strategies I'm using to read the excitement of reading high and expose students to books from our classroom library they might want to read next. I am also slowly working toward my goal of connecting our independent reading with grammar and writing instruction, so far with great success.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in September

And just like that, school is back in session again. After a week of professional development (good, but still made my head want to explode. I'm back in the classroom with full classes of students for the first time in about a year and a half. 

I am feeling incredibly anxious about the health risks of being in a room full of students who are largely too young to be vaccinated. While, my school (and state) is mandating masks for everyone and students' seats are three feet apart, I worry that it will not be enough to prevent the kind of horror stories I'm hearing from teachers in the South and West who have been back at school for weeks now. 

However, I am feeling a level of teacher energy that I didn't last year with virtual and hybrid teaching. So far it seems that I have another group of really sweet sixth graders, so that makes all of this just a little easier to bear.