Hurdles

I've got a case of writer's block. Obviously not on here, since I'm blogging to procrastinate on what I should actually be writing. We are doing a little Dr. Seuss skit contest at school this week and I want to have the skit script ready tomorrow so that my kids have some time to practice before we film on Wednesday afternoon (eek!). Our skit is supposed to use a Dr. Seuss book to show a character trait and I have chosen to do Hooray for Diffendoofer Day to show perseverance. BAD CHOICE! I know it can be done... but I am having some serious trouble making this skit interesting. It can only be 2-3 minutes so it's kind of limiting in what I can do. But I love this book and I am determined to make this happen... even if we have no chance of winning the contest, my students are going to learn a lesson and have lots of fun performing either way!

I feel a little guilty that I haven't blogged in a couple weeks but I haven't had too much to share. We had a lot of extracurricular things going on at school last week and I'm on the committee that was planning on the Dr. Seuss/Read Across America Week activities for next week so I've been doing a lot for that. Not to mention, my mom is coming to visit my school for the first time tomorrow! She is an assistant principal in a high school about two hours away and is coming to see how it is in an elementary school and to see me being a grown up. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time cleaning my classroom on Friday! :)

As far as my class, I have been taking a step back from doing a lot of the creative activities I was doing before. I am still doing a lot, but as I've been planning my lessons, I'm really trying to keep in mind how much time will go into preparing for each of the activities that I'm planning. If there is an option that will teach my students the material just as well without me having to spend hours and hours preparing for one forty minute lesson, I am trying to do that instead. It's a little frustrating seeing all these cute ideas on Pinterest and having all these great ideas floating around in my head and not having time to execute them all, but I had started to notice a couple weeks ago that I was getting burnt out. I'd rather take a little bit of time for me so that I can get back to normal in a couple weeks (as long as my students don't suffer because of it) than to keep it up and get to a point where I don't want to teach anymore. I think that's a mistake that a lot of first year teachers make and it is one of the (many many many) reasons that teachers quit so early on in their careers. I am trying to not be that person because the success of not just my current students, but my future students as well, is extremely important to me. But I do have to start looking out for myself. I just have to keep reminding myself that I can't do it all and that I have to leave myself some room to grow next year... everything that I create for my students will still be there next year and I'll have time to build on it. It's just hard to see all these fancy things that teachers put on their blogs or on Pinterest because I want to be on that level as well, but I have to remember that most of those people are not first year teachers so they aren't dealing with the things I am dealing with.

For those of you that are going through what I'm going through, I'll leave you with a quote that I saw the other day that put it all in perspective for me:

"No man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

In other words, you've got to be in your right state of mind in order to be the best teacher you can be for your students.