... Teachers Don't All Get the Summer Off!

I officially have less than one month until I have to go back to school and this summer has flown by! Luckily, I was able to spend a couple of weeks traveling and visiting family, but the majority of my summer was actually spent working really hard on things for next year. Just because I don't have students sitting in my classroom, doesn't mean that I'm just loafing on the beach for three months! 

I'm sure most other teachers you talk to are in the exact same boat. I am not complaining by any means, since I have been able to schedule around the work I need to do and do some things at my own pace, but I have been busy! Here are a few things that have taken up a lot of my summer time: 

Staff Development: We are fortunate enough to have some summer planning and staff development within our content areas. Over the course of two weeks, I spent six work days at school with my fellow teachers of Biology and Chemistry planning out things for next year. We wrote some tests, planned some labs, made some improvements to our online classrooms, and were able to brainstorm, collaborate, and plan for next year. I really think this work will pay off when we see each other again in the fall. It also gave me a short to-do list of things to accomplish before heading back in August. These are things I can do on my own time when the bright ideas happen to strike me (anyone else have this? 10 pm lesson planning because you had an amazing idea?).

Intervention Courses: I taught a science intervention course for one week at another high school in the district. This is different from summer school -- the content is very narrow and specific and only students who have no other options for graduation were in the class. The classes are small and taught with another teacher, but the class met for 4 hours every day for a week with a long test on the final day. It is very intense -- both for me and for the students -- but the students are very well behaved and try very hard since they know it is their very last shot at graduating. I love teaching this -- so rewarding! 

Resource Development: The district I teach in is extremely large and every summer teachers from the major content areas meet and develop some common resources to provide for district teachers for the school year. This year I was chosen to develop Chemistry resource with two other chemistry teachers from other schools. We had a huge list of tasks to complete by our July deadline -- everything from writing essential questions and reviewing the standards to creating writing prompts and assessments. The three of us divided up the work and met several times to make sure we were all on the same page. This was by far the largest undertaking for the summer, but after tonight I only have one more of my assigned tasks to finish! 

The last major thing I want to accomplish is to fill up my Teachers Pay Teachers store for the next school year! I have resources to update and new units, labs, and activities to upload. Make sure to check my store for new products to be posted and an upcoming start-of-school sale! 

Ideas for products you would love to see? Leave a comment below to let me know! 

Although I have been busy, I have enjoyed working on everything. I feel like the information and ideas will already be flowing when school starts in August. That is a great feeling for me!