It’s not like no one has ever counted the days until a break! Right? Every time a break is getting close, my mind tricks me and everything seems so slow. Well, I also take it as a reminder that if I am tired and ready for a break, my students probably are too! We all know that the days leading up to a school break are no time to start anything new. Our students are all over the place, with too much energy, and it is hard for them to concentrate. What’s the best we can do? In my opinion, the best approach is to take it easy and go with the flow. Time to look for activities to review some of the content taught before, spiral curriculum style. And one more thing. No administrator should decide to visit your class days ahead the break! Not because you are not doing your job right, but because we are all kind of out of routine.
I always love going on a break with my lesson plans ready or just leaving a few notes that will remind me where to pick up where I left off. Once we are back after the break, it is a a good time to go over your rules and classroom routines again. Believe it or not, one or two weeks are enough for some of those things to be forgotten. The great news is that you don’t have to spend time on activities to get to know your students. Instead, you can just reinforce and keep working on a safe classroom environment for you to continue teaching and for your students to continue growing. Teamwork!
Here are some visuals that might help you go over important and simple rules to make your class a safe space for every learner. It’s important to talk about them, model them, and practice them a lot! If interested in reading more about classroom management, I have one more post where I share what I do and what I include in my classroom to support rules and procedures. Click here to read it all!
Have an awesome rest of the school year!
