I know it's still June, but I am already thinking ahead to the upcoming school year. This past year was absolutely insane. I was stressed, sick, tired ALL the time. I felt like I had absolutely no life. I wanted to blame my new job, but I realize now that it wasn't my job's fault, it was my inability to manage well. I'm not blaming myself, because I think the first year of anything is the learning curve-so I've learned that what I did last year didn't work! My goal this summer is to take a realistic look at my life, schedule, and responsibilities, and figure out the best way to manage. I have a few goals for myself:
1. Make a master list of meals that our family likes to eat. This will make meal planning much easier, since that is my responsiblity.
2. Create a weekly schedule and assign household duties to different days of the week. I'm tired of spending our weekends cleaning the house. I want to do a little bit each day, rather than letting it all pile up.
3. Get lesson planning under control and create certain days for grading. This is what KILLED me last year. I felt like I spent my entire evenings grading papers or preparing lessons. I've learned that I don't have to grade every single paper! (Thank goodness!!) For lesson planning, I've started on this already. I've gone through all of my files (6 years' worth!) and placed them into subject related envelopes. I'm also compiling electronic resources from Lakeshore Learning. They have lots of great activities, lesson plans, etc. for FREE! (Did I mention FREE??) I am saving the pdf files to my jump drive into subject related folders. When I am planning a unit, it will all be there! I also plan to create a binder for each subject area, then put the lessons and resources I use into those binders. This will be an ongoing task throughout the year, because doing it all at once would just be too overwhelming!
Okay- that's three goals. I think they're doable and realistic. I will keep posting here (I promise!) to keep everyone who cares ;-) updated on my progress.
