Time to go back. Guilt free.

Well we must have blinked as our winter break is already at an end, time to begin easing back into your classroom routines. Hoping that most of you have been able to rest and recoup for the next block of our school year. It’s around this time that the stress begins to build as we look back over the break and realize that we didn’t quite accomplish all the things that we had planned to. Somehow it will all have to go back on hold again until the next break.

I’m here to tell you that’s not true. We needed to do as little or as much as we wanted while we recharged. It’s totally okay to do just that, listening to our bodies and our minds as we make choices during times of rest is essential. Being an educator is next level nurturing, especially those of us that have children. We give out more than we can possibly return to ourselves most of the year, so rest when given is essential.

Is this your first year teaching? This next section is for you.

Easing back into your classroom routines is oh so important especially for first year teachers. For my friends returning to the classroom for the first time after a Winter break, my best advice is to slow down. Most of the children will have been without routines for a few weeks with a large amount of sugar in their systems. So have we if we are being honest, ha! So it’s going to feel like September again for the first couple of weeks. It’s important to keep your expectations high but realistic to avoid frustration.

They will need you to re-train them with your routines, give lots of gentle reminders and additional time to socialize with their friends that they have been missing. These things are not just okay but work towards a positive classroom environment that we need in the middle of winter, so let them talk, play, dance. It will all be just fine.

Why is easing back into your classroom routines important?

You will feel report cards looming. This is okay and try not to stress as you already know how your students are doing. You can easily speak to that if you take the time to reflect throughout your day. Take the time to make good notes for yourself as you are watching growth or struggles happen. You don’t need to cram in curriculum. If you teach to the Big Ideas. Remember it is not meant to be a checklist but rather a learning path that touches upon the larger concepts that help our students to become successful critical thinkers and leaders.

So try not to panic. Stay focused on the main concepts and cycle through them regularly to solidify learning. When I first started teaching I taught large units but quickly realized by the time we were at the end, they had forgotten the beginning. So I started to cycle through the main skills weekly. This helped my students with retention and also helped my data collection. It helped keep me on track to make sure my students were getting the Big Ideas on a regular basis. In turn, I was successful in feeling ready for reporting.

Prepare your family (and yourself) that you will be tired.

Prepare yourself mentally. I like to think of the instructional year in blocks this helps me to stay focused and lowers my stress. Set boundaries and leave when you say you are going to. The never-ending list will remain, year after year. You will learn over time that the list is essentially created by us piling more onto our plates then we need to. It’s not really ALL necessary.

The one thing that teaching through the pandemic taught me that I found most valuable is that I need a lot less than I thought. I was able to really mainstream the important parts. Allow for students to take more of the lead in their own learning and stop teaching things that are fluffy. Kids do really well with repetition for retention. So that’s what I do. Similar activities that scaffold their skills but feel familiar, so they gain confidence. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, when I find something that works I use it again. The results are often different and the learning is always new.

If you are interested in learning more about how I go about setting personal boundaries, taking the time I need to recharge and refusing to enter burn-out. You can click here for more information on that.

Best of luck for the remainder of the year. I love New Years it’s a beautiful new book with 365 blank pages.

With Love, C.

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