Self Care at Year's Start

The start of the school year rushes across campus with schedules and syllabi, forms to sign and surveys to complete. We are in our second week. Students' schedules are settling down. We set up our journals.  We numbered pages. We set up table of a contents. We flagged a section for vocabulary and today we got to work talking about textual evidence.

From left: Me, Jackie, Beth from Seeking Six and Craig.
I am lucky to work with friends.

I love the start of a the school year. The faculty photo, the "Where I'm From" poems, the sentence surveys, the initial writing samples, new school supplies and shiny faces. There is a lot of energy at the start of the year. Sometimes the year's start can be stressful. Change is stressful. We have a new high-stakes assessment, new standards, new textbooks.  We have a new building on our campus too and are at the first third of a thirty-month renovation. We are running up the learning curve and practicing flexibility.  How do you take care of yourself so that you can be at your best for students?

Here are a few things I have been thinking about:

• Eat and exercise. Teachers at my high school have to report to school at 7 a.m., but many arrive early. We don't always eat breakfast before our o'dark thirty departure time. Eat breakfast. Before you leave the house or in the car, or at school. Make time to eat. You need the energy. At the end of the day, you might need to burn off some of that energy. Take a walk. Skate. Jump on a trampoline. Figure out an exercise routine that you can do for free--you'll feel better, stronger and calmer in the classroom.
• Stock a few favorite snacks in the classroom. Apples and peanut butter, microwave popcorn, Greek yogurt or individual servings of cottage cheese: grab and go. Eat while you supervise during passing time to keep your energy up.
• Cook meals ahead and bring several days worth of lunch at week's start. Sundays are all about chopping salad veges and grilling chicken. It makes for an easy throw together dinner during the week--add rice or pasta or a potato and even the teen boy in our house is satisfied.
• Do what makes you happy. I love to read. I love to eat ice cream too, but reading is better for me. Reading relaxes me. There is something magical about curling up on the couch, I escape when I enter into story.

 Can you offer advice to new teachers? I'd love to hear how you take care of yourself at the start of the year.

Hosted by the team at Two Writing Teachers, link up your Slice of Life 
on Tuesdays throughout the year.