Whether you are an early bird or not, your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. Mornings can be rushed and busy, so how can you fit in a few minutes of self-care? Here are some quick tips to try.
*Try getting up at least 30 minutes earlier than the rest of your family. Having that early morning time to enjoy some coffee or tea and wake up gradually before responding to everyone else’s needs will start your day on the right note.
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pexels
*Drink at least eight ounces of water before you drink anything else. This gets your healthy hydration habit off to a good start. You might try drinking warm water and adding the juice of half a fresh-squeezed lemon to it. According to Healthline, your body benefits from drinking lemon water in the following ways: it promotes hydration, it’s a good source of vitamin C, it supports weight loss, it improves your skin quality, and it aids digestion. Lots of benefits for a simple drink! This citrus juice presser makes squeezing lemons much easier!
*Write morning pages for five minutes. You can read more about the practice in this brief article HERE or watch THIS video to learn more.
*Sit still in a quiet place and try meditation for five minutes. Try an app like Calm or Headspace if you want a guide. Meditation gives you a sense of calm, peace and balance which helps both your emotional and physical health.
*Another five minute habit to try: deep breathing. Watch this brief TED talk from Stacey Shuerman, explaining how just 5 minutes of deep breathing daily can change your life.
It’s time for another Self-Care Saturday! And since it’s Mother’s Day weekend, I vote we have Self-Care Sunday too.
Some favorite self-care activities I will be doing this weekend:
*playing board games with my family
*taking a long walk on the beach
*enjoying a Mother’s Day brunch, cooked up by my husband who is a wannabe chef
*spending time with my adult children (who are some of my best friends in the world)
*reading (always a top choice)
*making more things-to-do lists using cute journals and Flair pens
*opening my Tate & Zoey gift box! (more on that later)
This post is going to focus on some of my favorite go-to books about teaching.
But first — here are some cute things I found this week.
*These tank tops from Target are awesome. I love the longer length and how you can wear them out or tucked in.
*Here is a slim fit version of the same tank top.
*This dressier blouse option from Amazon is really cute. It comes in a great choice of colors and sleeve lengths.
*I love this gingham face mask! If I’m going to wear one, it needs to be cute.
*I love using cute journals like this one and writing with Flair pens to make lists. When I need to use legal pads, I love THESE because the color makes me happy.
*I use my Phone Soap every single day. Sometimes more than once a day since I am on a cleaning frenzy.
Now for some favorite books about teaching. I’m still decluttering, but these are some books I will keep since I use them over and over. Keep in mind: I have been teaching for 29 years, so I have been collecting books for a long time! I have used Amazon gift cards to buy books, I often buy used books, and a few books were gifts. Plus, I never buy any book about teaching that has not been highly recommended to me by others. But even then, pick and choose what may work for your particular situation.
~Kagan Cooperative Learning by Dr. Spencer Kagan
This is THE book for effective strategies to get all students engaged, talking, and interacting with content.
~The Essential 55 by Ron Clark
Ron Clark is an amazing educator and the founder of the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. This book and the next were some of his earliest books explaining his story and his methods. They are both fun reads with effective tips.
~Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence & Equity for All Learners by Regie Routman
Regie Routman has been a literacy leader for over 40 years. I have read every single one of her books, and this is one of her latest. This book includes all of her tried and true strategies over many years of teaching and leading professional development for teachers. Her focus on equity for all learners is such a necessary focus for every single teacher.
This next set of books are my latest favorites because they discuss the importance of early literacy instruction and of building background knowledge in our students from day one. They also give you specific instructional strategies and resources.
Last reminders:
~The FASTer Way to Fat Loss round for teachers only (at $50 off!) begins this week! If you’re interested, check it out HERE.
~Jordan Page’s Productivity Boot Camp is FREE to sign up through the month of May! You can read more about it HERE.
~I am super excited to join Tate & Zoey as a brand affiliate. Have you heard of Tate & Zoey? It is a new online gift boutique with super cute and super affordable gift selections. We just launched this past week! HERE is a link to the website. If you are interested in learning more about making some extra cash as a brand affiliate, watch THIS helpful webinar to see if it’s right for you!
Have a wonderful weekend and Mother’s Day celebration!
It feels to me like I am working MANY more hours now than when I was in a physical workspace. How about you?
Part of it is the fact that we’re doing so many things that are new to us. Recording (and often re-recording) myself teaching and uploading videos is new. I’m used to creating Google documents and forms and uploading PDF’s but have never spent this much time on doing that. Communicating with students and parents, holding daily “office hours,” having social Google Meets with kids — much of this is new to me.
Part of it is that with my husband and son also working at home, we just get into the routines of having our laptops open all the time. We do pause for meals and usually watch a movie together in the evening, but otherwise, it feels like we are all working, all the time.
And I don’t even have young children at home, as many of you do!
I am also super type A and like checking everything off my to-do list.
But I realize I have got to get myself into a more manageable routine, complete with time “off,” in order to feel at least a little bit balanced.
I have been looking for solutions everywhere and I have a few ideas that I am going to implement this week. I’m sharing these in the hope that some of them will be useful to you as well.
1 – Have a set wake-up time and a set bedtime. That seems pretty basic, but I have been staying up later, knowing that I don’t have to get up as early as I do when I commute and work in a building. I know I need seven hours of sleep so I am going to be strict with myself about getting to bed on time. I need to be in bed, reading, by 10 p.m. so I can be asleep by 10:30 p.m. and up at 5:30 a.m.
Backing up from that set bedtime, I am going to put the laptop away two hours before bed. For me, that means by 8 p.m. My “reward” is getting to play a board game or watch a movie with my family.
(This is what I imagine my sleeping self to look like!)
2 – I am going to set certain times to check email and not respond after a certain time of day. Since a lot of my student and parent emails come in between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., I’m going to be available by email during that time. I’ll wrap up any other emails by 4 p.m. Everything else can wait until the next day.
3 – Are you finding that everything is taking twice as long as you think it should? Me too. I am trying to make my peace with that and just planning for it. (If you’re not feeling that way, please share your tips — I could use some help!)
Here is what I am doing:
~I made a list of ALL the things I have to do in a week (daily assignment posts, SEL check-ins, office hours, recording lessons, plan lessons, “grade” student work and give feedback, respond to email, PLC meetings, PLC tasks, record read alouds, etc. etc.).
~I also put the time of day beside each task to help me see where I was trying to do too much (more than what could be fit into that amount of time) and what I could shift to other times of day.
~Then I made a Monday through Friday schedule and scheduled all the tasks, meetings, etc.
~I always take Saturday completely off from any school work. But I do set aside some time on Sunday to either complete tasks from the week before or to get ahead on tasks for the week to come.
Some people want to work a shorter amount of time on both days of the weekend. And some people want to take the weekends completely off. Figure out what kind of weekly schedule works best for you.
4 – Have you heard of time blocking? If you are not familiar with Jordan Page’s Productivity Boot Camp, I highly recommend it. You can read more about it HERE. Right now, it is being offered for FREE!! (My favorite price) You can also watch Jordan’s entertaining YouTube video where she explains time blocking HERE.
If you don’t want to watch the video right now, here’s the gist:
~schedule time blocks for yourself. Jordan’s blocks are in three-hour increments. Mine are in two-hour increments.
~remember when I mentioned all the stuff I have to do and how I write down the time of day I will do that task? That’s what I do with my two-hour time blocks.
For example: 8 – 10 a.m.: I have two half-hour blocks of time for office hours. During that time, I also “grade” student work and provide feedback. I do other PLC or planning tasks and respond to email. All of these are tasks I can easily start and stop if students come to office hours.
~now — for the fun part — Jordan says that when the time block ends, you stop doing the tasks that were scheduled for that block. She compares it to high school classes. When the bell rings, you leave your biology class to go to your English class. Biology class is “done” for today.
~now — for the hard part — do you ever try to keep going to just finish “one more thing?” Yeah, I do too. Now is a good time for me (and you) to reform those habits and make sure we are taking care of ourselves.
So when my time block is done, so is the work for that part. What if I didn’t finish all the feedback from yesterday’s work? I move it to task #1 on the next time block where I have feedback “scheduled”. If that’s not until tomorrow at 8 a.m., that’s fine.
~the idea with time blocking is to keep you from getting sucked into the trap of trying to finish everything, and then getting frustrated because so many important other things are not getting done.
5 – I’m looking for processes I can streamline so that they won’t take as much time.
For example: even though my students are very accustomed to using Google Classroom, they are having trouble navigating so many more assignments being posted. I am organizing the assignments into “topics” such as “Week 1 Math”, “Week 1 Reading,” etc. I found a YouTube video about how to navigate Google Classroom without losing your mind. I sent it to all my students and parents. Now, when someone asks me a question about Classroom, I refer them to the video instead of having to explain it all over again.
Another example: when students email me with questions that do not need an immediate response, I tell them to come see me at office hours in Google Meet. That way, my time that is already scheduled for office hours can be used for questions without my taking other time to respond to emails.
6 – My PLC and I are working together to ensure that we are not being overly ambitious. In a perfect world, yes, we would cover every standard to the best of our ability, along with providing interventions for students who need more practice and extensions for those who need more enrichment.
But this is far from a perfect world. Instead, we are looking at what is “good enough” for now. That sounds like we’re lowering expectations and it doesn’t always feel very good. But we also have to be realistic about what can be taught well right now and what we are going to have to let go of.
7 – My first priority right now is connecting with my students. Yes, I would like for them to complete the online learning assignments that I am working hard to provide. But I don’t know the realities that some of them are dealing with at home. Now is not the time to be overly worried about holding them accountable for completing work.
Instead, I am checking in with them by phone, email, and regular Google check-in forms. I am checking to be sure they are safe and have what they need. I check to see if they have any questions about the assignments or if they need help with anything.
I have found that the connection time I am spending — making the effort to ensure my students know they are loved and cared for — is motivating some of them to complete assignments when they were not doing so before.
8 – I am giving myself grace and not even trying to please everyone. Some parents will think I am not doing enough or sending enough work for their students to do. Some parents will think I am sending too much and completely overwhelming them.
But you know what? They often think those things when we’re face-to-face with their children in our classrooms as well. I am sticking with the guidelines of our school district, modifying assignments as needed, and providing extensions where possible.
I am also thanking parents for their patience and flexibility as we all navigate this “new normal.” I understand that all parents are worried about their kids right now and I try to keep that in mind when I am communicating with them.
9 – Even though I do not have young children at home, my husband and young adult son are also working from home. I have found it’s helpful to let them know when I am in a meeting or I’m videotaping read alouds or lessons. A simple post-it note with the words “do not disturb” is working just fine!
10 – I am following my usual morning routine. You can read about some of the things I do in THIS POST.
Having time to myself to read, to make lists, to pray, and then to exercise makes me feel energized and ready for the day.
While it is tempting to just wear pajamas all day, I also get dressed for the day. Admittedly, my “work attire” is more along the lines of comfy pants and tops, but at least I got dressed!
11 – Create routines for yourself that help break up the day and give you something to look forward to. Take a true “lunch break” (something you probably did not really take time for when you were teaching in a building!). Sit outside if possible, or on a deck or a porch. Take a short walk. Listen to some music. Do some yoga stretches. But take a true break for yourself.
12 – Give yourself something to look forward to at the end of the day. Since my husband and son are home, we often watch Netflix or movies together at night. Make time to connect with other people in the evenings.
13 – Set up the best working space possible in your home, but don’t be discouraged by some of the Instagram teacher set-ups. Yes, they are gorgeous and I love looking at them to get ideas, but don’t worry about your own set-up not looking like theirs.
14 – One of the advantages of working at home is the opportunity to take more breaks throughout the day. To keep myself focused and motivated, I am taking small movement breaks to do some calisthenics or Yoga with Adriene. This helps me get back to work with more energy and focus, just like it works for kids!
When you stop working for the day, take a walk outside. Just getting outside and getting some fresh air and sunshine helps me feel better every single time. It also helps me to process what I did get done that day (it never seems like enough) and reset for switching to my home life.
15 – Keep it simple. My students are begging for more social Google Meets, but they want to meet in smaller groups so everyone gets a chance to talk. I want to help with that so I started creating all these different groups with all these different activities. Then I realized it was impossible. (Do you ever do that?) So I backed up and chose TWO options for small group Meets. We’ll start with that and I will add on when/if I’m ready.
In case you need a reminder – we have been asked to do the nearly impossible. We have transitioned from face-to-face teaching in a classroom to online classes or recorded lessons. We are teaching our own children at home. We are working from home AND teaching our own children.
Take a moment and give yourself credit for all of this.
Now – take a moment to recognize that you have to take care of yourself first. Keep in mind that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we eventually “hit a wall” in some way. Then we are no good for anyone. Taking the time to care for yourself daily is necessary for yourself, but also for all the people you are helping as well.
With social distancing rules in place and so many end of school year events being canceled, teachers (and parents) are scrambling for fun learning activities.
One of the best learning activities is to take a virtual field trip! I’ve been collecting a list for some time so this post is just one gigantic list. I’ve divided it into categories to make it easier to navigate. I hope you can find a few fun places to “visit” with your students or your own children!
After another super busy week of everything Google with distance learning, I am ready for another Self-Care Saturday.
Some of my favorite self-care strategies:
*read a book
*go for a walk
*get some exercise
*drink more water
*drink a cup of really good coffee
*light a candle
*wear something new or something that makes me feel good
*getting my hair done
*cooking or baking something
This post is going to focus on coffee, candles, clothes, hair, and cooking!
My hair is suffering the effects of the quarantine. How about yours? Here’s my favorite root boost from R & Co, but I also love this one from L’Oreal. I am keeping both of them in business these days.
Now – on to cooking and baking. We may be saving money on gasoline and entertainment, but my grocery bills are skyrocketing. We are doing all we can to support our local restaurants with curbside take-out, but we are also cooking at home a lot more.
I am slowly decluttering different areas around my house and the kitchen cookbook shelves were next on the list. I do not know why I kept accumulating cookbooks over the years, so I have a big pile of books to donate to Goodwill. However, I do have several “go-to” cookbooks and the following ones are some of my favorites.
*Barefoot Contessa – Family Style
I love her Oven-Fried Chicken, Challah French Toast, and Arugula with Parmesan salad. She gives great tips in her cookbooks on planning meals, making a schedule, and presentation of food.
*Barefoot Contessa – At Home
Some of my favorites are Chicken Piccata, Honey White Bread, and Peach & Blueberry Crumbles.
*Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier
Crash Hot Potatoes, Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce, and Summer Stir-Fry are my go-to recipes.
*Love Welcome Serve
I love everything I’ve tried in this cookbook but her Cinnamon Rolls are my absolute favorite in all my years of trying various cinnamon roll recipes. (My goal in life is to make the best cinnamon rolls in the world by the time I have grandchildren. This recipe is helping me achieve that goal. My kids are not helping on the grandchildren front, however.)
*What Can I Bring? is another cookbook that never disappoints. Her chicken enchiladas are the very best.
With all the extra cooking and baking going on, I have a feeling that my next favorite cookbook is going to be the Instant Loss cookbook!
Thanks for reading, friends! Have a relaxing weekend and make sure to take time for yourself, doing something that makes you happy. Stay healthy and safe!
There are so many things we cannot control right now. With distance learning underway and no end in sight, teachers are concerned about how we can best meet our students’ needs.
I find it helps to consider what I CAN control instead of getting overwhelmed with what I cannot control.
Here is what we CAN do:
*we can make our students feel safe
*we can help our students to feel connected to us and to each other
*we can offer the best learning opportunities possible, given the limitations of distance learning.
This post is all about helping our students feel safe and connected.
A disclaimer: we all have a lot on our plates right now. I am sharing several ideas and resources here, but this is not to say that you should be doing every one of these things. Just pick and choose what works for you. Maybe try one thing this week and choose another idea next week.
*First of all, just checking in with your students helps to calm their stress and keep you connected. On her blog Teaching with Jennifer Findley, Jennifer has some awesome FREE Google forms you can immediately download and use as resources. I started by sending a Google form check-in once a week, but I have started increasing the frequency and asking different questions. I found that even the students who are having more trouble completing the academic online assignments will answer questions on the Google forms.
*Another way to use Google forms is to ask for student feedback on what is working for them with distance learning and what is not working. Simple questions you could ask are:
~what’s working?
~what’s not working well?
~what suggestions do you have?
*Hearing your voice and seeing your face is key for your students. In my district, we are doing recorded video lessons but I know that many of you are doing live lessons. Either way — just seeing you and hearing your familiar voice are a comfort to your students.
So when you are getting tired of making all these videos and planning all these lessons, keep in mind that the social-emotional connection is one huge benefit of the work we’re doing to continue academic learning.
*If reading aloud was an important part of your classroom (and I hope it was!), you can keep it going while you are distant.
I have done a few different things.
~record yourself reading by putting your phone on a tripod like THIS ONE or record your reading with Screencastify or Screencastomatic.
~record yourself reading by using your phone as a document camera. (DIRECTIONS FOR THIS??) or buy a (relatively) inexpensive document camera. (Here’s another option that looks promising.)
~buy the Kindle version of a book and read it from your screen while recording your screen in Screencastify.
*Continue (or start) doing a morning meeting with your students. This doesn’t have to be a long meeting, just a quick check-in at the beginning of the day.
Incorporating morning meetings into our home learning plan can help in a number of ways. First, students thrive on familiarity, especially in challenging times. Next, morning meetings help develop or maintain social and emotional skills. They can help increase student motivation for learning and sharing in online discussions. Finally, morning meetings can help get our students ready each day to take on the academic challenges we’re sending home.
Here are some tips:
~send a link in Zoom or Google Meet;
~as kids join, give them a few minutes to chat with you and with each other;
~try to show your students something familiar from the classroom (maybe a poster or chart, whatever talking object you used in the class, maybe a picture book or something your students would recognize as representing you or the class);
~use some kind of quiet signal to get students’ attention and have everyone mute their microphones (you’ll probably need to set some ground rules and consider using signals for your students)
~do some kind of check-in (show how you’re feeling with facial expression or on fingers with 1-5 ranking)
~use some kind of question for students to respond to. Here you might just call on a few students or you might let everyone share quickly
~do some quick activity together (see my list of possibilities HERE)
~give them their action plan for today (today you will . . .) & how to access help from you if they need it
~one more minute or two of social chat before signing off.
*If morning meetings are too much right now, you might make short, check-in videos for your students. You might do some kind of morning greeting, tell a joke, read a story, make “announcements” about learning for today — use your usual routines for starting class in the morning.
*If morning meetings and making videos are not feasible, try posting a daily question or prompt and allow students to respond. You could post the question using the question feature in Google Classroom, post a question on Padlet, or allow students to make short, 90-second videos in FlipGrid to respond to the question.
*Send a brief note or card to your students through the mail! Everyone loves getting mail and this will make them feel special. There are some great postcard options on Teachers Pay Teachers, like THIS ONE.
*Use Google docs or Google slides to create a virtual journal for students. You could write a prompt on each page or slide or just ask your students to write daily and update you on what is going on in their world.
*Allow your students to process their emotions in a variety of ways. They can write a letter, a journal entry, make a Google drawing, use emoji’s or memes, or write a poem.
*If you’re familiar with Brene Brown’s work, you may have heard her talk about the importance of giving yourself “permission.” Here’s a quick link where she explains what she means. So give yourself permission — to stop working at a certain time, to not answer emails at 10 p.m., to create videos that are “good enough,” not perfect.
And give your students permission as well — permission to miss an assignment or take a day off, permission to talk to you about what is working or not working for them.
*Remind your students of certain life skills they can work on while at home. This is a time where learning how to do these skills can be just as important as their academic learning. Here are some ideas: learn how to do laundry (sort, wash, dry, fold, put away); cook something; bake something; learn how to wash dishes; care for plants or do yard work; write cards or letters to loved ones; organize areas (closets, shelves, books, toys, clothes); learn to do small fix-it chores around the house; care for pets; care for younger siblings; learn how to do cleaning chores around the house.
*Have a purely social Google Meet or Zoom meeting at least once a week. See my list of activities you can do in those meetings HERE. Playing a game together, seeing everyone’s faces, and having a chance to talk and laugh together is good for all of us.
*You could also do an activity together that students might also do on their own at other times. Examples are:
Go Noodle, Calm,Cosmic Kids Yoga.
*Consider asking your specialists or other adults at school to join your Zoom meeting or Google Meet. It’s fun for your kids to see other people that they know and to get a chance to engage with them as well as with you.
*I’ve mentioned Edutopia before. It is an awesome website for all kinds of resources, but especially for social-emotional learning. I found some great tips in this recent article.
Here are the tips that resonated with me:
~create an engaging online environment. You can do this by providing
*a checklist for assignments to complete
*a way for students to interact with each other (maybe by using FlipGrid or Padlet and by having weekly social Google Meet or Zoom meetings)
*a way to interact with you or ask questions (with office hours via Google Meet or Zoom).
~build community (by using some of the tips in this post!)
~be present (by having those office hours, by providing feedback on student work, offer strategies or scaffolds to help students to become more independent with online learning)
~establish norms for Google Meet or Zoom meetings.
*It’s a good time to teach your students to practice gratitude. You could use one of these prompts as a check-in question or at the start of a morning meeting.
~What are 3 things you’re thankful for today?
~What are 5 positive things happening in your world right now?
~Who are 3 people you’re thankful for today?
~What’s a place that you’re grateful for?
~Who is a person you know that you are thankful for?
~Who is a person you don’t know that you are thankful for?
~What book are you grateful for?
What’s something outside that makes you happy?
*Before you begin a video lesson (or live teaching), ask your students to stop and check-in with themselves. How are they feeling? You can give them a number scale to use, ask them to use a “weather word” to describe how they feel (sunny, cloudy, stormy, etc.), or use emojis or memes for them to identify where they are and how they feel.
Then, after checking in with themselves, talk about what they can do to change their “state”. Do they need to take a break and do something active? Do they need to take a break and do something calming? Do they need to talk to someone? Do they need to be by themselves for a minute or two?
Asking your students to check in with themselves and to think about what they need helps to empower them to handle their own emotions and mental state. Even if they need help from someone else, it empowers them to ask for what they need. These are great life skills for all of us!
*Encourage your students to do mindful activities as part of their “work” at home. They can spend time creating art, writing, reading, spending time outside, taking a walk, listening to music. Encouraging these activities as much as you encourage academic work is very important right now.
*Check-in with families frequently as well. Just send a quick email or make a phone call, asking them how it’s going and checking to see if there is anything they need. If someone does share a need that you cannot help with, share the concern with the appropriate people at your school. For most parents, just knowing that their child’s teacher cares about them as people goes a long way.
*One Padlet prompt I am going to use this week is a 6-word memoir. To do this, challenge your students to write about how they’re feeling, what is going on with them, or a positive/hopeful thought, but limit it to six words. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. My example is: “This is not what I expected.”
*I saw a great tip where a teacher is making it part of students’ homework to check in with another student. They can email, text, or call. Then their job is to write an email to the teacher to tell the teacher how that other student is doing. I think this sounds like a great idea for reminding students that we are all still connected and still part of a learning family. You might need to model the process first, but I think it’s worth a try.
*Another idea is to set up virtual table groups with a discussion thread in Google Classroom. To do this, you would use the question feature. Post a question or assignment, then assign it to only the four or five students in the virtual group. (You can assign the same question to other groups as well.) Here’s a video link to explain.
You can use Google slides in a similar way. Alice Keeler explains how to do this on her blog post HERE.
*I read a great article on EdNC called “During Covid-19, teachers can support students using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” You may be familiar with the saying that we have to “Maslow before we can Bloom.” I completely agree with that statement, so this article made sense to me. I am linking this short article here.
The seven tiers, in order of what we need to do for students goes like this:
Level 1 – are students safe and fed?
Level 2 – do they know they are loved and missed?
Level 3 – do they have coping skills to deal with crisis and emotions?
Level 4 – do they have access to instructional materials?
Level 5 – skills for online/remote learning
Level 1 may not be totally under our control. But we can do things to support our students in levels 2-5. I hope that you found some suggestions in this post that will help you support your students with levels 2 and 3. Please share your own tips!
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
