Work Life Balance - How Do You Stay Healthy?

Dear Journal,
I need a place to vent and I know this is a safe place to do so. I often think this career has made me a better teacher, but not a better person. I am really saddened by this statement because I do enjoy my job and find it so rewarding and valuable. But the time it takes to do well is seriously ridiculous. Recently, I have noticed the toll that is taking on my body, mind and spirit. This brings me to the question I have been pondering: Is there such thing as work life balance for a teacher? After 5 years of teaching I would like to think that I have more balance in my life, but I don't. In an ideal world my physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health would all be equally cared for. But, the sad reality is that I feel it is all hanging by a thread.

Physically I am often tired and feeling like I am on the verge of a cold. I have managed to get to the gym more often than I did in my first year of teaching, but it's not the consistency I would like or need. My eating habits are also variable and often meals are eaten on the run. Actually sleeping isn't a problem since I am always so exhausted at night that I fall a sleep before my head hits the pillow. The problem is getting to bed on time. I get to the point where I have to say, "Okay, enough is enough, I could work on this lesson all night or mark these papers or return these e-mails.... or I could sleep." I usually choose sleep. My skin is starting to also show the signs of stress and lack of vitamin D. Oh, how I miss the sun.

You could argue that my mental health is being fed, depending on how you look at it. As a teacher I am constantly processing, planning, problem-solving, critical thinking, reflecting and trying to remember all the daily tasks. This causes my brain to be active all the time. But, I haven't read a good book in a while, tried a new recipe or taken a course in a different discipline for a few years. I have thought about it, and even looked into it, but don't make the time.

Emotionally, I am all over the map. Part of this is because I am a female and the other reason is that  I am under a lot of stress. I have a wonderful supportive administrative team and group of colleagues that makes my life so much better. My husband too, being a teacher, has been supportive and very understanding. But, the truth is I don't have time or make enough time to spend with friends or family. I feel as though I cannot afford the time away from school planning and prepping to go out for coffee or cook a meal for a friend. I do see others, but it is usually only on Friday or Saturday night. Even then, I often choose one of those nights to just veg out a home. Taking time to regroup and be on my own is healthy, but I feel as though I am lacking in my relationships with others. It is truly sad when facebook becomes my main form of social interaction...

Spiritually I often feel distant from God. I work at a Christian school and have the privilege of being able to read the Bible and pray in my classroom. I love that. But, I lack the time I can spend one-on-one. I miss it. I often get so carried away with my daily tasks that I forget. I pray on the run, sing in the car, or just catch bits and pieces of encouraging words from here and there. What I want is to have time to just be still.

Well, journal. You've heard some of my deepest thoughts regarding a teachers work-life-balance. I don't believe the job allows it. At least not if you strive to meet the expectations of the your district, admin, parents or students. I mentioned often that I don't make time for things as a possed to having time. I really believe that I choose school over life. Its hard to say that but I feel pressured to for many reasons. All of which I'll save for another e-mail.

I can't leave this post in a negative tone. I want to be healthy and know that it's better for me and everyone around if I am. So, here are some of the healthy goals that I am striving to do. My hope is that making the time for these will outweigh the time taken away from school. I know it will.

Healthy Goals
Physical: 
- going to be before 10
- packing veggies in my lunch every day
- visiting my naturopath monthly for acupuncture
- taking my vitamines
- going to the gym at least twice a week and doing yoga at home twice a week
- breathing

Mental:
- reading part of my book once a week
- cooking or baking something different a few times a month
- breathing

Emotional:
- having someone over for supper once a month
- making time for my husband once a day
- breathing

Spiritual
- breakfast and Bible
- journalling
- breathing

I am hoping that these small steps, when done consistently, will bring some relieve and stability to my life.

I'd love to know what others do to stay healthy during the school year. Feel free to comment and leave your ideas. I really feel that it can't be done on your own. Its a community effort. 

Pomegranates, Date Cake and Couscous

They say that the best way to learn is through experience...and then reflection upon that experience. This is what made my afternoon one of my most successful teaching moments yet. All it took were pomegranates, date cakes and a bowl of couscous...

Before I get started, here is a little background info.
My goal this year was to create an all year inquiry-based unit that mainly included my science and social studies outcomes. Of course, many other subjects are touched in the processes, especially Language Arts and art.
So far we have been having so much fun our adventure. Since we study four countries throughout the year (Tunisia, Ukraine, India and Peru)  I decided to create a year-long trip. We started the year by focusing on basic mapping skills and familiarizing ourselves with the location of our community in the world.  In each country to learn about the culture, geography, economy and government. Our projects are all science based and focused on our science outcomes.

I created a fictional character named Mr. Smithwick using the awesome program xtranormal.com. The idea is that Mr. Smithwick is the CEO of a NGO called Global Community Helpers. He has hired our class to travel the globe helping out different communities. After finding out that our first trip would be to Peru, we quickly set to planning and researching. Finally the day came when we set out to Peru. Hopefully I will have a chance to blog about our in-class flight, but at this moment here are a few pictures that show our flight day.

The teachers as flight attendants.

Our in-class flight.

In-flight movie, snacks included.

After our adventure in Peru, we have traveled to Tunisia. We've only been there for less than two weeks, but our excitement is still high.

Today we visited a Tunisia Souk. I began by having the students watch Tunisian Street Walk video found on YouTube. After that we discussed what the markets look like, what was sold there and how the people were similar and different to us.
Next the students had a chance to divide into 8 groups. Four groups acted at vendors while the other four groups became the tourists. The vendors each had a cue card to read that explained the goods they were selling. The tourists used the money they had made in Peru (and exchanged at the airport in Tunis for Tunisian Dinars) to buy different items at the market.
As you can imagine there was so much learning going on like selling goods, making change, reading facts and tasting and new foods and flavours.

These were the four vendors I had as well as the write-up that the students read before selling:

1. Pomegranates –  Pomegranates have been grown in Tunisia for hundreds of years. They are often eaten like many fruits or used for juice, wines, baking, or salads. Pomegranates are exported from Tunisia to many different parts of the world. Cost – 3 TD       
2. Clothing – Right now in Tunis the climate is wet and mild. May people are wearing long pants, sweaters and rain jackets, especially in the evenings. Come and buy a rain jacket, umbrella, or some warmer clothes for your stay here. Cost: umbrella – 15 TD,  jacket 20 TD, pants 15 TD, sweater 20 TD
3. Couscous – Couscous is the most popular dish in Tunisia. It has been eaten in Tunisia since the day of the Berbers, these are the first people to live in Tunisia. Couscous is made in a two-layered pot called a keskes. We just have plain couscous for you to try so it will not be as flavourful as you may think. Usually people eat couscous with meat and vegetables. The most popular way to eat couscous is with lamb. Cost: 5 TD
4.  Date cake – Dates are grown in Tunisia. There is a city in the southwestern part of Tunisia called Tozeur, which is home to the country’s biggest oasis containing hundreds of thousands of palm trees. The people there make money by exporting of dates and also by giving tours of the Sahara Desert. Often dates are used in Tunisian sweets. This is a date cake made with dates that have been boiled.  Cost – 10 TD                       

After our afternoon at the market, we went back to our desks to count how much Dinar we had left. Since we all started with the same amount, but ended up with different amounts, each student was expected to figure out how much was spent. It was an awesome introduction to 3-digit subtraction. Finally the students had a chance to journal about their adventure in their travel journals. My one student was so excited about this afternoon, I invited him to blog on our classroom blog. This is what he said:

Today I went to the market. I worked there and bought things too. At the market there was food and clothes. I worked at the couscous vender. It was awesome! I hope I get paid tomorrow. When I got to buy things I bought 1 pair of pants, 1 cup of couscous, and pomegranate juice. The pomegranate juice was awesome and the couscous tasted like rice but it was a little better than rice. Some of my friends bought pomegranate fruit and date cakes. I liked selling and buying. I thought the souk was pretty cool.

For a kid who prefers to read and solve math problems this was his best journal entry yet! Another reason why today was so successful.

Eventually I would like to write a little more about our adventure. Until then, I'd love to hear how you are engaging students with hands on and authentic learning.

Monster Descriptions - Descriptive Writing

Getting kids to write descriptively can be challenging. Often time they write something down and in the middle of reading it to you, they stop and say, "so what I mean is that..." or "and he also has...". My immediate response is that they need more detail and description.

My grade team partner and I found a great idea on the Teaching Chanel called Monster Match. We had our classes work on writing descriptively by having them create a monster and then write a descriptive paragraph. Oh, the learning was abundant.

Prep: I drew my own monster and had wrote a descriptive paragraph about him.

Day One:
I displayed my paragraph on the SMARTboard and gave the students a piece of scrap paper to draw on. I read the paragraph and allowed the students time to draw what they were picturing in their mind.
I revealed my monster and they compared. It was great for them to see how close their drawing was to mine. Some, of course forgot to add a few pieces of detail. I also was reminded that I didn't add some detail that was important, and it was a perfect teaching moment.
The students were then asked to design their own monster. The room fell silent as they carefully worked away and hid their picture from wandering eyes.

Day Two: 
The following day we jotted down a few words that would describe our monsters. The students then wrote paragraphs using a lot of detail.

Day Three: 
After a time of revising and editing, they shared their paragraphs with a student in the other grade three class. The quickly learned how must detail they included or left out. It was a great and fun way to practice descriptive writing.

Remembering the Students and Teachers

Welcome Back Bulletin Board - better late than never!

I am a little late posting this, but it's just been that kind of a year. I can't believe it took me being sick to post my welcome back bulletin board, but here it is.

After the Lorax came out this summer, I thought it would be a great scene to use to welcome the kids back. They loved the look and were able to relate to it. The poem on the cloud says:

Oh! The places you'll go!

All the things you will see.

Oh! Your learning will grow,

All in grade three!

These are the pictures I took just minutes before the students arrived on September 4, 2012. What an exciting day.

Best PhysEd Web Site! Ever!

I am so excited about this new Physical Education web site that I just found. I am sure some of you have already seen it, but I wanted to share it anyways.

PhysEdGames.com

It has many different games for warm-up as well as sports related drills. The best part is that it is all explained using video! I have been showing my students these videos before we head to the gym to try it out. I find that the visual is so helpful. We don't waste time in the gym trying to figure out the game or drill. Since I have to split the gym with the other grade three class, I also get to save my voice. Love it. I hope you check it out. 

Back With Some Great Ideas

After a long break from blogging and teaching, I am back feeling a little more ready to take on this year. My summer was not a restful one and so it took time and energy to even look at this blog. I love looking at other people's blogs and sharing ideas, so really I am excited and happy to be back in the blogging world!

I'd like to talk about ideas. Where do you get your great ideas? I have to be honest and say that most of my ideas are stolen from other teachers. I prefer to say that they inspire me, which is so true, and I then use their ideas because of how great the ideas are. Looking through blogs and seeing what other teachers are doing always gives me that excited, bubble feeling inside. I often feel re-energized and think 'I could do that, too!'
Since it is the beginning of the year, I wanted to reflect on some of those great ideas I did last year and give credit where credit is due.  Many of the ideas I altered slightly to fit my style and my students.
Take a look.


Idea: End of the year gift: Personal Wordle

Source: Confessions of a Teaching Junkie
Comment: My students spent time at the end of the year writing one word to describe every classmate. It was a challenging task for some of them. I loved seeing the students reach for the thesaurus and work hard to find just the perfect word to describe their peer. Many of my students came up with words that I hadn't even thought of. I love this when it happens. After I collected all the adjectives they chose for each other, I made wordles for each student. Following this, I downloaded the wordles and created DVD covers for my students. These were the covers to the class DVD I made of all their grade three photos. 

Idea: Non-Fiction Reading Marathon

Source: Fabulous in Fourth
Comment:This was a cool idea. My students loved the idea of having a marathon. I made a few changes to the version found in Fabulous in Fourth by shortening the time between stops. I did make the mistake of providing non-fiction books that were not long enough. In the end, the students were really proud of their work. I hope to try the fiction reading marathon as well this year.

Idea: Making 3-D Shapes with Manipulatives

Photo taken from Learning Ideas-Grade K-8

Source: Learning Ideas - Grade K-8
Comment: After studying 3-D shapes I gave them the task of building a few 3-D shapes. I began the lesson with these posted on the SMARTboard:
Choose 2 questions and build the 3-D shape.
1. What shape has 8 edges and 5 vertices?
2. What shape has 8 edges and 8 vertices?
3. What shape has 9 edges and 6 vertices?
4. What shape has 6 edges and 4 vertices?
The student had to build the shape and then name the 3-D shape. Many of my students were able to complete all four shapes even though they were only required to finish two. A few were only able to figure out 1 or worked the entire time on 2 questions. It was a great assessment of their understanding of the concept.
 My students loved the idea of using candy as a math manipulative. Instead of pretzels, I used toothpicks. I found that this was easier for the students to connect to the candies.

Idea: Self Portraits

Source: I am not sure where I got this idea, but it wasn't mine. If I remember or come across the site, I will be sure to post it. 
 Comment: Since I don't have the source, I'll explain how the students created these pictures.
1. Print off a picture of each student
2. Provide a transparency for each student as well as a thin permanent black marker. Tape the picture to the transparency.
3. Have students outline their faces on the transparency using the marker.
4. Provide paper for student to paint and create a background.
5. Use black construction paper to create a frame.
6. Carefully glue the edges of the transparency onto the background and stick it in the frame.
I also had students write simile poems as a way to describe themselves. We posted the poems with the pictures to create a hallway bulletin board. 


These are just a few of the ideas that I wanted to share. I am looking forward to another year of blogging and collecting more ideas.

It's good to be back!