A Day in the Life of a Teacher on Summer Vacation

Hi all. Not even going to bother discussing my terrible blogging consistently as of late. I am here now :) 

So many thoughts about teachers in summer. I love my summer days. I do a lot, but I feel like it's more balanced (read: less crazy person) than my school year self. Here is what I was up to on my first Thursday of summer: 

7:00- I wake up and head downstairs. I eat a quick breakfast, take a shower and then I'm off to pick up some bagels for work. 

8:00- Arrive at work. My summer vaca is all over the place, but this week I am working 4 hours a day at my school. I am working with a team of 4 other teachers from the district and we are helping to write our Writing Curriculum. I am the only K teacher, so I am feeling like I have way too much power to determine when everyone is going to teach. Mwahaha. 

8:30- Discuss the expectations of what I am supposed to accomplish by the end of the day today with the director. It's not possible so I just want to make sure that is clear with everyone. Quickly realize I am "expected" to do this on my own time later this summer. We shall see if Kelly puts her foot down here… I say yes way too easily. 

9:00- Wrap up an outline of the goals and lessons for a Narrative Writing unit. Feeling accomplished and it's only 9 am. 

10:45- Decide it's time to start eating the bagels and fruit that we brought to help us push through the morning. I don't know about everyone else but I waver between feeling I have so much freedom and such an easy job compared to the school year, and then being like "I hate sitting for this long! Need to take frequent breaks!" I guess this is why I don't work a desk job!

11:30- Finalize some lessons on "super sentences" and start to look at our research unit. Man, my life in the summer is absurdly boring, I'm sorry people have to read this. Well, actually- you don't have to read this...

12:30- Jet out of work and head to tutor my two students today. Most days this summer I'll be tutoring 2-4 kids, at random times. Today I am lucky because I am tutoring two twin sisters, so the process is much faster than if I had to drive between their houses or something. 

12:45- Arrive at tutoring and start with twin #1, one of my favorite students of all time. We do a math lesson on my computer, read a Scooby Doo book and play a reading game, all the while her two bulldogs try to bite each other at our feet. 

1:15- It's time to work with her sister. I'm obsessed with the 1/2 hour blocks, normally it's an hour for me to tutor each child so this is going by so fast. Twin #2 is only doing math, so we do a practice page, a math lesson, a follow up activity to the lesson and then play a math facts "Go Fish" game that I made her. The time flies by, especially compared to curriculum writing this morning. 

1:45- The girls show me an airplane they created out of 5 boxes. It's pretty serious, it has wings and a legit cockpit with tons of controls. I love creative kids and what they come up with in the summer. 

2:10- I get home and finally shove some sort of lunch in my mouth. Then I make some tutoring games and organize some activities for next week. 

3:00- I chat with my friend about possibly going swimming, we get sidetracked and discuss work and it ends up thundering anyways. 

3:30- I decide to walk/run on the treadmill

5:00- I make some dinner and get ready for Paint Bar!

6:30- We get to a place called Paint Bar. I'm sure you've heard of these types of places. There is a painting of the night and they teach even SUPER untalented people like me to paint it. 

7:30- We are well into our painting, things are going better than I expected. The guy teaching us is a hilarious art student who claims to be "Type A" but I'm pretty sure that's a lie. 

8:30- I start to destroy my painting by doing too much to it. This needs to be over. 

9:00- We all hit a wall and stop listening to what we are supposed to be doing and just let the artistic power (or lack thereof) take over. 

9:30- Our masterpieces are complete!

10:30- I get to bed, way past my bedtime :) Tomorrow I have to wake up and sit for 7 hours in a math training. I wish I could just do today again!