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Showing posts with label teacher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher. Show all posts

Monday, August 26, 2019

Back-to-School



I'm a life-long resident of Michigan. School starts after Labor Day. Well, some school districts in the Great Lakes State are taking a hard look at whether waiting until after the holiday is a good idea.

Michigan has a law on the books to prevent classes from starting until after that first Monday in September to promote tourism as long as possible for seasonal destinations. But, there are ways to get around it legally.

Since my spawn have all graduated from high school--and I've retired from teaching--I don't really care. I just want to take advantage of office supply sales.


And, when I say office supplies, I mean sticky notes, washi tape, good colored pencils, and fine-line markers that won't bleed through my Bullet Journal paper.

As matter of fact, I'm doing my September set-up in my spare moments (read: 10 or 15 minutes here & there, when I'm shifting gears).
September 2019 Bullet Journal Monthly Spread. Fall theme with hand-drawn to-go coffee cup with a little spill, a Mac laptop, vehicle, 'Fall is...', acorn & colored leaves across the bottom. A tree trunk is 'behind' the date boxes.
 I'm finishing up my current lined Bullet Journal and then I'll be switching to a dot-grid format. This is a B5-sized lined book, and it fits a fabric batik-looking cover purchased from a colleague--which increases the number of pockets for stickers!

Bullet Journal from March 2019. Washi tape dividers and stickers to accent. Weekdays (Friday) is a full page and Saturday & Sunday are on one page. 
Back in March, I was using Washi tape like it was the best thing since sliced bread (it is...). But, I learned over the course of the year, that the Washi made my BuJo thicker and the front cover started peeling away. The new dot-grid BuJo is spiral bound, so we should prevent that from happening. And, I'm drawing instead of using Washi as dividers.

Bulled Journal spread. Each day gets its own page because I wear so many hats. 
What I like most about using a Bullet Journal is that I can customize it for me. Any appointments I have for the day go in the top section. The second section (where there's writing) is for my dayjob tasks.  I track editing I need to accomplish for others in the third section. Sometimes--if I don't have any editing projects happening--I use that space for notes about a story I'm working on or other ideas. The fourth section is for my writing tasks. I found stickers on Etsy that have a box for Word Count and I add those daily.

The bottom section is for health tracking. If I have a particularly painful day, I make notes of sleep, eating, exercise, and weather to help track the ups and downs of the rheumatoid arthritis. I'm the first to admit this section doesn't get as much love as it should. I'm working on integrating something more artistic in the upcoming months. 

How do you stay organized?

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Back to School! #RB4U

Back to School

Hello and thank you for stopping by today to talk with me about Back to School.


If you are a teacher, I'm sorry... You are probably feeling a little under the weather. It seems like the germs have hit many of you. 


If you are a student, you are probably feeling a little tired as well. Getting up early and being "on" all day is a challenge after sleeping in for the last two and a half months. 







If you are a parent, I'm sure you are celebrating. School has begun and you are able to send the children off for a little bit each day, so you can get some work done or enjoy some "me" time. Or you are missing the hours you had with your little ones. 




As someone who has been all of the above (student, parent and teacher), I have to share with you how I feel about this time of year...

Back to school time is a time to reconnect with friends and enjoy time together. This year, I'm guest teaching and have already been in two different schools during the first week. I've met some wonderful students. Two stick out in my mind...

In one classroom, at the end of the day, one student told me that he was sad that he won't see me until October when I'm back in his class. I love that I made a connection with him. He is a Japanese student who moved to the USA for five years and while he speaks Japanese at home, he's speaking English at school. I connected with him because I had a former student who was like him. He appreciated that I "got" his life, that I understood what he was going through and had time to listen to him share about the trip he'd taken back to Japan over the summer. 

The second student was in a different class. After sharing about bucket filling and how we all can make each other feel happy...he hugged me at the end of the day and thanked me for coming in. It made me want to go back to that class again.
Two different classes and two different students but they both gave me a gift. And you can do the same to someone you see today. You can say a kind word, a compliment or even share a smile. Each one of us deserves to have a wonderful back to school, fall, or even September. #fillabucket

Did you have a favorite teacher? Someone you connected with? A classmate you couldn't wait to see again in September? I'd love to hear about it.

And if you are looking for a fun story about a school teacher who finds love in a surprising place... check out Chalkboard Romance.  Chalkboard Romance- Amazon
Until Next Month...
Melissa Keir
www.melissakeir.com

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