August Currently

Holy cow! The first of the month snuck by me. I can't believe it's already the month I go back to school. Womp womp.

Linking up with Farley for this month's currently.

Most of mine are self-explanatory. On the squirt gun one--my husband and I decided to throw it back to our youth this summer and purchased some water guns at Toys 'R Us last month. We've been having water gun fights in our backyard when it's been particularly hot and sticky, like today. My dog loves playing too haha!

For my RAK, I think I'm going to try and get birthday cards/little goodies for the co-workers I'm closest to this year. I am friends with them on Facebook, so I can find out their birthdays and just drop a little something in their mailbox. I know I love getting birthday goodies at work!

July Currently!

Wow! I totally forgot July even began today. Where the heck is my summer vacation going?!

Link up with Farley!

Listening: It is cool enough today to have the windows open! I love hearing the sounds of my neighborhood in summer.

Loving: See above! I adore that it is only in the low 70s right now.

Thinking: I always get a little blue after July 4 because it means my summer is about half over. How did June go by so fast?

Wanting: We just got back from our vacation up north! It was incredible. I fell in love with Mackinac Island and the Leelanau Peninsula. A couple pics from our trip.

Mackinac Island

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

We hiked, we biked, we drank lots of wine and ate lots of good food, and I am sad it's over.

Needing: But now it's money-saving time. We have two weddings coming up for which we have to travel, plus house projects we need to do.

All star: I have always been the go-to paper editor. Obviously, now that I teach English, that is part of my job when grading essays. But even in college, girls on my floor would come to me and ask if I could edit their papers for them. I should have charged money!

Summer Vacation: Time for Relaxation, Work, or a Bit of Both?

Well it's been almost two full weeks of summer vacation so far, and hopefully most of you are done or at least wrapping up the year now, too.

I have spent my summer vacation thus far with a variety of activities: two work meetings, house projects, hiking as much as I can, spending time with my dog and planning my husband's 30th birthday party, which is Saturday.

I know some teachers who spend their entire summer (almost) doing work-related things and/or prepping for the next school year. I have never been one of those people.

Two summers, I did do our credit recovery/summer school program for the month of June to earn some extra money. There are also sometimes committee meetings or department meetings I have to attend. But I really try hard to make my summer as relaxing as possible.

It's always a frustrating time of year to be a teacher, I think. There are a lot of negative feelings from the public about teachers getting summers off. But on the other side of that coin, I think *some* teachers try to be martyrs about the summer thing, too, and boast about how their summer isn't really time off because all they do all summer long is work anyway.

So frankly, both sides of this issue annoy me. Here is how I typically address anyone in the first camp that are upset about teachers getting summers off:

You want summers off too? Go back to school and earn a teaching degree. Then you, too, can have summers off.

Having 2.5 months off every year is a perk of teaching. Most jobs have perks. For some corporate jobs, that may be use of a luxury company car, fancy parties, dinners out, year-end bonuses in the five figures or the ability to work from home all or part-time. Teaching does not have those perks, but we do get ample vacation time. Going into your career, you knew this would not be a perk of your job and were obviously OK with it if you followed that career choice. It is not my fault you did not choose the job that has summers off as a job perk.

To the teacher martyrs I say: Give it a rest. It is OK if you DON'T spend the entire summer working. Relax. Enjoy yourself. Spend some time with family and friends doing fun things. If working and prepping for next year make you happy and less stressed, great. But your argument will fall on deaf ears anyway, so don't do it to try and prove a point to people. 

I enjoy my summer guilt-free. I start prepping for work in early August and do attend a few work meetings if I have to, but I have every intention of relaxing, doing things I don't have time for from Sept-May and kicking up my feet. I don't feel one iota of guilt about that and neither should you.

So how do you typically spend your summers?

June Currently

School is finally over for the year! Wahoo!

Linking up with Farley for the first Currently of the summer.

Listening....Nothing! It is totally silent in the house this morning, which is kind of lovely.

Loving....Many of my teaching friends are still in school for another week or two, so I feel very lucky to be done already (though in August, I'm sure I'll be jealous of them for not starting until September!)

Thinking....I still have a few curriculum mapping meetings to attend this week and we have to start planning out our curriculum for next year.

Wanting...My first weekend of summer vacation had absolutely horrible weather. Cold and rainy. We have an outdoor concert we want to attend this weekend, so I am really hoping for nicer weather.

Needing...With school and work not an excuse anymore, I've got to get on cleaning this house!

Summer Lovin'.....Headed to northern MI in 3 short weeks! Very excited. We have a few concerts planned this summer as well. And lastly, we have a wedding in July and one in Sept (though technically not summer anymore) that we are using as long weekends/short vacays.

The Sunscreen Song: Activity to do with Graduating Seniors

Well the school year is really winding down here. Our last day is this Friday. I can't believe another year is almost in the books. This year has had its ups and downs, its challenges and its triumphs. But overall, I really enjoyed the group of kids I taught and was excited to incorporate some new lessons into my curriculum.

I teach mostly seniors, who finished up a couple weeks ago, and this year I incorporate a new activity on their last day of regular classes. I might be showing my age a bit, but the "Sunscreen Song" by Baz Luhrmann was really popular when I was graduating from 8th grade (lol) and I remember it kind of being a mantra for my class.

If you aren't familiar with this spoken word song, it actually started out as a piece in the Chicago Tribune by Mary Schmich entitled "Advice, like youth, probably wasted on the young."

Then, two years later, Luhrmann (the man who directed films such as Romeo + Juliet and The Great Gatsby) set it to music and turned it into a popular spoken word song for graduating seniors (or 8th graders, as it may be).

Here is the music video for it, which I showed to my seniors:

None of my seniors had heard it before (they were all 2 when it came out, which should make you feel very old!) I also gave them a copy of the lyrics.

After listening to it and watching the video, I had them go through and mark their favorite pieces of advice. What I love about this song/article is that even though it is silly at times, it does have very good and even poignant advice in it. Here are my favorite lines:

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't

Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't

Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the 'Funky Chicken'

On your 75th wedding anniversary

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much

Or berate yourself either

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's

Many of my students loved these lines too.

After we discussed what their favorite pieces of advice were, I had them get in pairs and write their own "Sunscreen Song." They had to come up with at least ten pieces of advice for their fellow graduating classmates. The advice could be serious or silly, sentimental or humorous. I gave them about 20 min. or so to think about it and write, and then they each shared their favorite pieces of advice. I thought beforehand that most would want to write silly advice, but the vast majority came up with very thoughtful, heartfelt and sage advice actually.

It was a very fun activity, and I thought a perfect one for their last day as a high school student. Middle school teachers could easily use this with 8th graders graduating as well, since nothing in the song is inappropriate. 

What activities have you used with graduating seniors or 8th graders?

May Currently

I have missed participating in the Currently linky these past few months. Life had been super busy, plus, since becoming a Mac owner, I felt lost without MS Paint, where I had always done the Currentlys before (the English teacher in me is grimacing at the spelling of that plural, btw). But I decided to just use a free online photo editor (I used PicMonkey) to add text to the pic and voila! If anyone wants to know how to do that, just let me know. It is super simple.

Linking up with Farley.

Listening: I love that it's have-your-windows-open weather again! I love hearing the birds chirp, lawn mowers running, people laughing outside my window in the morning.

Loving: If you remember my posts from last summer, we put in a crap ton of new landscaping. We decided to add some more flowers this year, as well as our usual annuals in flower pots, etc., so we are planting a ton this weekend and it's making me SO happy.

Thinking: Allergy season needs to end. Enough said.

Wanting: May 29 is my last day of school, and it can't come soon enough. I need a break!

Needing: We are having a huge garage sale in 2 weekends, and I need to start getting stuff together for it.

Summer yes: Trip to Mackinac Island and Leelanau Peninsula in MI this June!
Summer hope: I set a goal to complete 52 hikes in 2015. So far I have 8 lol. It is just hard to do when in school. But this summer I hope to get up and go hiking most weekdays.
Summer dream: Ever since moving into our house, I have wanted to re-paint it. It is an ugly pale yellow with red shutters right now. I am crossing my fingers we can afford to do this this summer.

Bulletin board idea

I am on Spring Break right now, and it has been wonderful! The weather hasn't necessarily been cooperating, with first chilly, gloomy weather and now severe storms! But it has been nice to have some time off, especially since my husband took a week vacation from his job too. We took a small getaway to a nearby town Mon-Wed where we did some hiking, wine tasting, and lots of shopping. Now we are back home and have big plans to paint our patio this weekend if the dry weather predictions are true.

Have you all had spring break yet? Any fun trips or events?

While I'm on break and avoiding grading the essays I brought home (shhh!) I am working on a new bulletin board idea for the small board at the front of my classroom. It is so hard to figure out what to put on high school bulletin boards. There are lots of cute ideas for elementary students, but I want something a little more grown-up for my seniors in high school that is still visually pleasing and possibly useful.

I decided that since I teach 80% seniors, I would do a "life after HS" bulletin board. I ordered some black graduation cap cutouts from Etsy and picked up a silver permanent marker. I emailed our guidance counselors and had them send me a list of all the colleges/military branches our students had committed to for next year. I think I have about 30 total.

I'm going to borrow from the popular Dr. Seuss book and title my board "All the places you'll go....class of 2015 plans" then write the names of the schools/military  in silver marker on all my graduation cap cutouts.

I thought it'd be fun for the students to be able to see where their peers are headed and it also is a way of patting them on the back and saying "Way to go! Look at all the cool places you guys are headed next year!"

I will try and take a pic once I have it all finished.