End of year ideas?

Because it's close, people, awfully close (at least for those of us non-East-Coasters - I know some of you go to like the end of June). I've got 17 school days left - 17! And then.....goodbye.

So I'm trying to figure out what I want to do to wrap it all up. It's different this year since I'm teaching 8th graders; they won't be back in the fall and I feel like we should mark the passage to high school in some way.

Here's what I've got so far. Some is the same as every year; I want to add some new, though.

- I'll do my end-of-year notes and composition notebooks. I stocked up on those last summer when they were on sale for 50 cents each rather than the usual two dollars - feeling pretty proud of myself for thinking ahead here. :) I'll also do a class picture of each class and give each kid a copy.

- All my kids will sign a yearbook for me to keep as a memento; I really like doing this and would recommend it to everyone if you don't already.

- They'll do an evaluation for me about the year and my class and things I should change and things I should keep and all that good stuff. It'll be a little more extensive than my trimester-ly one, but not a whole ton.

- I got a fancy copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go! and may get another one, because this might take two. We're going to have every 8th grader write a sentence about the places THEY'LL go in the book and then keep it in our library for future kids to look at, or for themselves to come back and see.

But....that doesn't feel like enough. I could do letters to their future selves and deliver them to the local high school in four years, but with our mobility, a lot of these kids won't be there in four years....a fair chunk won't even be going next year.

I've thought about doing a Summer Literacy Challenge. I think it's such a cool idea, and while I don't know that too many kids would actually do it, it'd be awesome if any of them did. And I could totally come up with sweet stuff for a high school survival pack. Plus that would offer a way to continue our relationship a bit; they'd be able to email me or mail it to me or drop it by the school....and actually I could go to the high school one day to collect them from the kids who do go there (which is most of them). And I could talk to them about the summer reading gap as encouragement to do it....okay, as I'm writing, I'm talking myself more and more into this, so I think I will do this too. Actually, I'm kind of in love with the idea now and can't wait to start planning it.

But still. I want more. More of a celebration - maybe have kids read bits of their favorite portfolio pieces? As one final class celebration, and bring snacks and stuff again? Make a banner for next year welcoming my new students to class - ooh, maybe with six word memoirs about the year on them?

What do YOU do?

(Image credit to Eleaf)

Teacher game day!

I get way anxious during summer vacation if I don’t have stuff to do. And that stuff can’t be, like, painting various rooms of my house. I need stuff that involves other people; otherwise, I start calling my husband at noon, saying, “What’re you doing?” and “When’re you coming home?” And since he, y’know, works during the summer, I imagine phone calls like that are majorly annoying.

So I’ve been working on having something that involves human contact at least every other day. I had a minor panic attack on Monday of this week when I realized I had absolutely no plans until Thursday. A few text messages and a Facebook status update later, I was booked with at least two events every day through next Tuesday.

Today was a teacher game day.

We started this two weeks ago and are doing it every couple of weeks for the rest of the summer. I have a group of friends with whom I did my certification program; we’re a mix of English, science, and social studies folk (we had a math guy, but he moved, and we didn’t like any of the foreign language people). We’ve always gotten together every couple of months for happy hours to gripe and brag and drink and reassure each other, but even happy hours get expensive and we’re trying to not spend much extra money beyond normal school year spending this summer. So we’re rotating houses, making it a potluck, and playing board games. It. Is. AWESOME. We’re talking about teaching hardly at all!

Don’t get me wrong – I cherish (need, even) our school year commiserations. But it’s summer, and it’s nice to find other topics of conversation, like guys (or girls, but today happened to be all female), politics, summer fun, movies, music…it’s like we’re real people again! We’ve played Apples to Apples, Scattergories, and Catch Phrase, and next time we’re adding Taboo and Scrabble. It’s reminded us that, yeah, we actually like each other and have things in common beyond teaching.

Because being a teacher is a huge part of my identity, and same for my friends, but I’m also someone who enjoys water parks, and the movie I Love You, Man (have you seen it? If not, seriously, you gotta check it out – best bromance ever and Paul Rudd and Jason Segal are absurdly charming in it. And the tagline “He needed a best man…he got the worst” is a lie that makes it seem like it’s going to be a terrible and offensive film, when really it is simply delightful), and can squeal with glee when a friend finally hooks up with the guy she’s been digging for months…

We’re teachers AND people. Spending some time nurturing the latter aspect can only make us better at the former.

(Photo credit to Pensiero, http://www.flickr.com/photos/pensiero/487117524/)