It must be the time of year, but I have had so much difficulty finding my energy these last two weeks. My personal life has been trying, with busy schedules and sick kids, and even having to purchase a new car. I feel that this has really pulled my energy away from teaching.
I have not been as creative with my lesson planning as I have been in the past. Looking back in my last unit, I feel I chose similar activities too often. I have noticed that the enthusiasm of my students has declined a bit, too. I know we are all ready for that week long break at Thanksgiving!
However, I am really feeling we need to mix things up in my classroom to make it through the next two weeks before break. I plan on spending some time over the weekend coming up with some fun and engaging activities for the last two weeks before Thanksgiving. I also feel like pushing my creativity will help me to re-engage in the teaching process and increase my enthusiasm, as well as my student's enthusiasm.
I know the feeling all too well, I think it is just that time of the year. Halfway through Week 14 and everyone is burnt out. I felt myself starting to repeat similar activities from unit to unit, and wondering where my creativity has gone lately. Something that helped me was taking a couple steps back, looking at the whole picture, and flipping through our NTI notebook. It was very refreshing to touch up on some activities/strategies/methods we covered over the Summer that I had forgotten about. I'm still nowhere near where I want my classes to be, but taking it one day at a time has shown to be more productive than trying to conquer the world in a night. Hang in there, we will make it through this!
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