I’m officially on summer break and I’ll be honest, I am relieved. As a music teacher, I have concerts to plan and parents to contact about ensembles and all the other end of the year craziness that is part of teaching to begin with.
I am also a crazy person and like to have big ideas planned out for the following year, so that I don’t have to do all the work in the next school year. This means that I plan out concert themes and start generating rep ideas. I find PD because district PD can be useless, and I also reflect on the school year and think of ways that I can improve things for myself or my students. I know, it’s a lot.
So this year I’ve decided on a few things that I am going to do this summer and as a form of accountability for myself, I plan on sharing a lot of that information here and on my instagram page (@displacedpedagogy).
To start, here are the professional goals.
Take Kodaly Level 1
I am taking Kodaly Level 1 because I feel very insecure about how I teach melodic concepts. I’m great at practicing those concepts with the students, but I need more ways to practice and present the concepts. Kodaly Level 1 also focuses on Kindergarten and first grade, so I’m excited to improve my K and 1 instruction.
Yes I did switch jobs and grade levels this past year. You can read what I think about elementary versus middle school in a future blog post that I will link here soon.
Organize Centers for Most Content/ Concepts
The reason that I want to create centers for content that I’m teaching is because at my old middle school I had to keep meticulous data on all the students about their musical knowledge. I got very good at doing this in middle school, but you can’t give a second grader unstructured time to just “practice” and hope they use it well.
I also realized at almost the end of the school year that I didn’t actually know how each individual student was doing. I had a good idea of what each class could do. So I plan on creating centers (stations) and making myself one of the stations so that I can quickly check on each individual student.
Make a Concept Map and Stick with It
I’m actually pretty good at making a concept map, and I want to take the time to make one for my students because now I have a good idea of where they are at musically. One of the other things that I want to include in this concept map is themes to use with each grade.
For example, maybe kindergarten is working on long and short sounds, but they’re also going to go on their pumpkin patch field trip soon (a real field trip they do every year). I want to do lots of pumpkin things to get them hyped about the pumpkin patch, to build those cross curricular connections, and to build relationships with them.
Not every grade will love themes like pumpkin patch, but I have a lot of sporty boys that really enjoy sports, so I’m going to try to create a sports themed unit to get some buy in from them.
Finalize Repertoire for Concerts
I’m ok with not fully accomplishing this goal. But I do like having this thought out in advance, so that I can fit those songs into the school year. Now that I teach elementary music, nothing has bothered me more than having to stop all the awesome things we were doing in music to prepare for a concert.
This may also be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t like putting on concerts. It’s so stressful! That being said, the art teacher at my school and I have come up with some crazy ambitious ideas to better incorporate the student artwork into the concerts. In years past student art work has simply been the backdrop for the concert, but she and I agree that the art work also needs to be front and center. So the more I can front load all these concerts, the better!
How am I going to accomplish all of this?
I’m glad you’ve asked. I am going to work on school related tasks for one hour each day (Kodaly being the exception) so that I can get the things done. This is just one hour minimum, I will allow myself to work more hours if I feel like it. For instance, I may decide to cut out centers while I watch TV on the couch or maybe I can create my own centers for student use.
My thought process is that one hour is long enough to get something accomplished, but not so long that I feel fatigued or feel like I’m not getting rest. Speaking of rest, next I’m going to share my personal goals for the summer.
Walk 8,000-10,000 Steps a Day
The reason that this is a goal is because it’s not too much more than I walk in a typical school day anyway. I have been on a health journey for a while and I think I just need a little extra push to take things to the next journey. The extra 2,000-4,000 steps per day shouldn’t feel like too much and should be pretty easy to get. There are two parks with 1 to 1.5 mile loops within a 20 minute drive of my house (there are very few sidewalks in my city). The plan is to wake up and go to one of these parks and get a nice long walk in before I can wake up too much. If I start exceeding this goal on most days before July first I will increase the amount of steps to keep challenging myself. But I want to focus on consistency first.
Have Meals Ready to Go In the Freezer
Back to school meal prepping can be a challenge because my energy levels are ZAPPED in the first few weeks of school. I am planning on making one or two additional full recipes each week so that I can have plenty of food during the back to school times when fast food is going to be super tempting.
This will also help with grocery shopping expenses during the school year because I’ll be able to shop from my freezer so often. So this is basically a win-win for myself.
Get Blog Posts Written and Scheduled
There is no definitive amount of blogs I want to have written and posted by the end of summer. My goal is to simply have two blog posts written and scheduled each week at minimum. I will allow myself to write a third blog, but I think two minimum will actually be enough blog posts written to have a blog going out each week until my school’s winter break. This also means I can chill out with all sorts of business type things during the school year (more chill time after school is the whole goal this summer).
The only blog and non-blog posts that will not be scheduled out are going to be Friday updates I deliver on all of these goals.
Play More Board Games
I’ve recently gotten really into board games again, which is unfortunate because they can be very expensive! One way I am combatting this is only buy games if they are on sale or second hand. I also check to see if the game has a solo player mode since I game by myself most of the time. My sister has also lovingly agreed to a board game day every month so that I’m not always gaming alone.
I just think that board games are a great way to relax and get my mind off of work. So many games have such great artwork and are so puzzly, but the goal is different every time unlike other puzzles like sudoku (no hate because I also love sudoku).
Read Three Books
My yearly goal was to read five books this year, which will be five times more books than I read last year. However, I have a problem with turning my brain off so that I can focus and comprehend what I’m reading. My goal here is to read 15 pages before I go to bed each night because I also recognize that I need to have a bedtime routine to help me sleep better.
That’s it for now! I have several business goals that aren’t about blogging, but product creation takes a long time, so I don’t want to stress myself out by promising tons of products. I’m focusing on a few different very large products and have a goal to get them all uploaded by the end of July. If you want updates and notifications about the new products when they are released you can follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers and click on the green star. You’ll see my newest products first when you open Tpt and an occasional note to sellers when I update a product or have other things to share with you all.
But I hope that my list of goals inspires you to make some of your own goals for the summer. You can go ahead and follow me on Instagram as well and get real time updates and tips! Happy summer break!
Displaced Pedagogy 