“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” ― Adam Hochschild
It is Spring Break time already! For not being in the classroom, the days sure are flying by as if I were still there. The homeschool boys I work with are taking a Spring Break to match the District, and I was excited because I thought I wouldn’t have to leave the house, but wrong! Lots of plans this week, which are mostly gathers with still-in-the-classroom teacher friends who are savoring the rapidly fleeting week.
And while the week quickly goes, the exciting thing about returning is that one *usually* returns to the last lap of the race. I always liked coming back from Spring Break and starting fourth quarter. It just made the remainder of the year extra fast. There are so many end-of-the-year events, and they come rapid fire. It can really be a make or break time for students: work and focus, or falter and be distracted.
One, fateful, year, my school did a Spring Break Spirt Week. Sounds like a fun idea, so motivating! Nope. Terrible idea. As if more distractions are needed this time of year. One of the days was “anything but a backpack day.” How fun, someone must have thought. They can use things like picnic baskets or buckets. How preciously naïve. I was actually going through old photos a couple of days ago and found the list I kept of all the insane things I saw on campus that day.
It was a rough, albeit rather hilarious, day. I thought surely we must have been having a campy high school movie made on campus. The kind where you think, that never happens. But then it does. 0_o
Hopefully none of you have those kinds of extreme distractions, because the time is indeed short, and you can begin the homestretch with confidence in your lessons and assurance that your students will make academic gains. I know in my district, once Spring Break is adios, it’s testtesttest! pretty much up until the end of the year.
I have a thorough resource dedicated for literary test-prep (informational has been on the to-do list for a year…).
However, all my lessons are always geared towards standards and skills to maximize student achievement. These are my top two resources thus far this month, and they just happen to be two of my favorite texts! Especially Emily!
Happy Teaching!
M.D. Saints
Reading the Rapids
Liberty Dog Writing Co.
These two love each other so much. It’s very sweet. Nike loves Novah way more than my practically perfect in every way Brannagh loved Nike. As far as they’re concerned, every day is Spring Break and nothing distracts them from their together snoozes.