I spend my days making imaginary lists of things I wish I had the time to do, things that I feel passionate about but that I don’t have the time to do while my energy and inspiration are on fire. I say that because the lack-of-time excuse isn’t totally fair, right now I am sitting on the couch with my husband as we both browse the internet while listening to 90’s music. I could say that in this moment, I have time to do some of those things, but my inspiration is on sleeping mode.
I love this song!
At times, I actually get some of these things started. I start a google doc or grab my notebook where the idea can be planted for when I eventually have time and inspiration running at once. I find it ironic that I am taking the time to write about this idea of not having time to do these things… But enough rambling, I love teaching and my heart beats faster when I think of ways to make learning better for students and teaching easier for teachers. So, these are things on my list:
- A Shared Reading pacing with books suggestions based on our classroom libraries. Fully aligned to the units of study we teach in reading, writing, and phonics.
- Create Grade Level specific google forms for writing and reading conferences that can be shared with other teachers.
- Dig into Google Data suites and find a way to make data actually meaningful for teachers and not such a pain to sort and organize.
- Take an old (but pretty good) self-assessment teacher rubric for literacy instruction and turn it into a single-point rubric that would make feedback more like “feedforward”
- Unpack the Grade 1 Phonics Units of Study and creating a sequence that matches the current reading and writing units.
- Finish writing the 4 drafts I have here: “My Kindergartners write with Pens and I love it”, “Positive Parenting, advice friends and family have asked for”, “Teenagers Online Identities and Behaviors”, and “My inconsistent idea of journaling”
- Do some research on current and best approaches from different schools on effective and meaningful parent communication.
- Make plans to collaborate with schools nearby, planning an Early Literacy conference or something to bring teachers together to have conversations about best and innovative practices.
- Practice more coaching conversations…
So many things that I love imagining but don’t feel like I have the right amount of motivation to make happen. Some more doable than others, and all things that stand in the way of getting the usual done: weekly plans, writing newsletters and report cards, planning for small groups, guided reading, prepping for Math lessons, Science lessons, fun morning meetings and games to make my students laugh, get through all emails in less than 24 hours, meet with parents, attend meetings, and have a moment in my day when I’m not thinking of work.
Maybe this post can give me a slight push to start something from that list? We’ll see 🙂
How cute is this Venetian dog trying to decide whether to enter the store or not?
Start with a Story 