Thanksgiving Break #DITL

The following post is a contribution to the Day in the Life Book Project initiated by Tina Cardone:

My district gives us the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off.  We were in for a two day week, but on Monday we had our first snow day.  The snow was not as bad where we were, so after our roads were cleared my husband and I were able to head out and run some errands.  These are my favorite kind of snow days.

Tuesday became the only day we had school for the week.  Before school I was excited and invigorated, but once it started, I realized just how badly a break was needed; for my students as well as myself.  My colleagues and I were expecting students to be absent and unruly.  I am happy to report that I had the normal amount of students, and they behaved as if it were any day.

I gave my General Geometry students a coloring activity that reviewed parallelogram, rhombus, rectangle, and square properties.  They really struggled with this activity.  Every year students struggle with parallelograms and special parallelograms.  I really don't understand why, other than the fact that there is so much information packed into one lesson.  I'm wondering if next year I just have to teach each shape as a separate lesson.  However, I don't want students to view them as separate items.  I will have to continue to mediate on this.  On Monday, I plan to do a mini-lesson to review the properties, and then give them time to finish the activity.

We took notes in my Geometry classes.  We are starting congruent triangle proofs next week.  On this day, we were practicing identifying congruent corresponding parts and marking diagrams.  In my SAT Prep class, we examined systems of linear inequalities.  The weird thing here is that normally graphing would be part of teaching this topic, but since it's the SAT and all questions are either multiple choice or "grid-ins", we just look at graphs and situations and answer questions about them. 

Overall, Tuesday seemed to fly by.  I came home, and my husband and I went out to complete our errands.  We were planning on having a dinner and movie date night, but by the time we finished dinner and our errands, we were too tired to go to a movie.  We also had to go home and pack.  Our Thanksgiving tradition has been to visit his parents 3 hours away for the break.

On Wednesday, I woke up at my normal time.  My husband had to work at his school for a half day.  While he was working, I finished packing, mailed a package, and set up everything for our departure.  We left as soon as my husband returned from work.  We spent the rest of Wednesday and Thanksgiving relaxing and enjoying our time with family.  It wasn't until Friday that panic started to set in that I had so much work to do, and hadn't accomplished anything. 

On Friday, we continued to try to relax, and spend time with family, but I carved out two hours to get some work done before breakfast and dinner.  That made me feel better, but it didn't stop me from struggling to fall asleep that night.  I could only think about my long to do list, and all of the things that I was going to have to do when I return to work on Monday.  Right now I have a fundraiser to wrap up, deposits to collect for the senior trip, another senior portrait session to schedule, and I have to start taking orders for senior class t-shirts.  I'm overwhelmed with all of the senior class responsibilities that are coming up at once.

On Saturday, I did a little more work before we came home.  We returned at 4:30 pm, and I started the laundry right away.  We took care of our grocery shopping for the week, and made dinner.

Today I woke up at my normal time.  I made some blueberry muffins and got right to work.  I worked most of the morning, and then organized my closet.  This has been a slow process, and still is unfinished.  I wish I had a few solid blocks of time to complete my new home tasks, but it's hard with all of the school work that needs to get done first.  I've been getting 20 minutes here and there for small projects since the school year began. 

We left early this afternoon to join my family for a second Thanksgiving.  We didn't get home until after 8:30.  Now I'm worrying about all of the things that I need to do tomorrow, and still need to get done tonight.  I just hope that I can get to bed early enough to get a decent amount of sleep.