Painting

Summer!

Today the kids and I began our summer vacation! This is the earliest in the year I can remember the kids getting out of school. We are out so early because snow days were built into the school calendar, and we never had to use them (since we had essentially no winter this year). It feels so strange to hand in my keys and make plans to NOT work for 2 months. When I was making plans to go back to school, I thought having the same schedule as my kids and having a 2 month break in the summer was the best thing about being a teacher. Don't get me wrong, I still think it is pretty fabulous, but now I realize how essential this 2 month break is. Maybe my year was harder than the average school year, but even so, I could see teachers around me (veteran teachers) become overwhelmed at all they were asked to do. This 2 months to refresh and reset our minds will make us better teachers next year. I couldn't imagine losing this summer break. What must year round school be like?? Anyway, I was more than ready to put this year behind me. It was hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I am proud of myself in a lot of ways for how I did. I made mistakes, but I learned so much. Lessons I learned this year will make me better in the future. But I also feel bad that I will not miss most of my students. I will think fondly of them, and will be interested in learning how they are doing in life if I see them in the halls of the middle school or in Walmart, but I will not wish them to be in my class again. It was time for them to move on, and I wish them well in their lives. So, we have big plans for the summer! This will be the first summer break in a while that I actually have a paycheck to use on recreation. In my head I have a schedule of things the kids and I will do to keep ourselves busy, but as always, a lot of it will be just being around the house, getting things done that I dream of doing when I'm really busy during the school year and working outside to make things prettier. But it will be relaxing and refreshing, which I desperately need.