How is your summer going?

On the first half day of summer (I say half day because my daughter took me literally when we left the last teacher work day at noon and I said “our summer vacation has begun”) we went straight to the pool. Does anything say “we are on summer break” like a visit to the pool? The next day, our first official full day of the summer break we went on a fishing charter all day and caught some big fish. Whoa that was an adventure. We really started the break out with a bang.

The second day of summer break was spent between home and church. I love Sundays. The third day of summer break, our first Monday of vacation, was a very rainy day so we didn’t do too much. We decided to go to “the games” as my daughter calls it which is an arcade. Here in Japan, instead of playing for tickets you play for fun or to win prizes out of the machines. There are a LOT MORE prize machines. We snagged 4 tiny prizes (it only cost me 1700 yen haha). After the games I ran an errand to my classroom to tend to some shelves and put up some new containers I snagged–because next school year’s plans are heavy on my brain and I’m not fully checked out and on vacation mode yet. My daughter was not happy with me over that. So I made it a very quick stop!

On the fourth day of summer break the rain kept coming so we spent a day at home (mostly). I started housekeeping my own home more thoroughly after a school year of moderate upkeep. My daughter and I built legos. We had a cozy day. By the afternoon the rains subsided and we decided to check our local store for a much needed school supply. I found 16 out of 44 of what I need so guess what I’ll be doing on the fifth day of summer vacation? Looking for said needed item of course. But we won’t waste a whole summer vacation day on that project. If the rain holds out, we may find a new playground and take time to simply play.

All that rambling to say, why not make a list of what you do each day on summer vacation? I’m thinking it’ll be neat to look back on the list throughout and at the end of the summer to see how I spent my days. I’d like to be aware of my patterns. How much time am I investing into school, family activities, personal development, rest, fun? Maybe the list will help me re-chart my course as I go so that I can do more of what matters most.

Will you join me in the challenge? Just get a notebook and list what you do each day. You don’t have to write a whole journal entry chronicling the whole day every day (unless you want to). It can just be a list of the most significant moments. It will be fun to see how we spend our free time.

Side Notes:

If you follow my TPT shop here’s what’s on my agenda right now. I am nearly done updating all of my product covers. That has been fun. I have an idea for a new product that I intend to use in my own classroom. It will be simple and to the point classroom library labels so if you need labels for your classroom stay tuned. One of my themes for the next school year is minimize. DO MORE WITH LESS. I want clean, simple, easy to see labels. I want bulletins to be cute and eye catching without covering all my classroom walls. I want functional and flexible posters but VERY FEW at a time. For example–a double sided poster board on the wall at the front of the room that is on the reading side during reading time and the math side during math time. I want high contrast black and white items with a few color pops. Spark joy with pretty upbeat colors without rainbow bright taking over the room.

I had a few students last year who just couldn’t easily see the board. Sometimes when sorting the classroom library we struggled to find the section we were looking for on the bookshelf because the cute labels were muted in the color scheme. I want students and myself to find what we need fast. I want order. I want important information to be easy to see. I want cute décor on the bulletin board but the rest of the room to be functional, content-oriented and minimal. When I set it up in August I’ll be sure to share pictures.