Ten Goals for this Coming School Year

I've already mentioned on this blog that I am a better starter than finisher - I do a better job of setting goals than meeting them, but here's what I am hoping for for this year.

• I want to feel "settled" rather than pressured or hurried or "behind."
• I want to have strong book fairs - $2000 to $3000 in sales or more for each one - so we can do some good things for the library and for our teachers (new carpet for kids to sit on in the library, maybe some more comfy seating, books for the library/classrooms, maybe some new TVs and an update of our media - we have so many VHS tapes still, etc).
• I want to see at least 100 students meet their AR goal each quarter of the year.
• I want to see at least 75 students meet their AR goal all four quarters of the year.
• I want at least 80% of every class to be reading at grade level by the end of the year.
• I want to end the year with all books cataloged, repaired and shelved (fewer loose ends at the end of the school year)
• I want to achieve a rhythm by October than allows for personal time for reading and crafting and other personal pursuits in the evenings and on the weekends.
• I want 100% of the third graders to pass the IRead this year, too.
• I want to develop a regular practice of prayer and encouragement for my peers.
• I want to recognize student birthdays all year.

I realize I only play a small part in some of these achievements, but I want to pray these things into being, I want to be part of the solution, I want to be an encouragement/facilitator for the teachers and the students as we pursue some of these goals.

Ten Places to Travel as a Family

I have had some lovely experiences travelling with my family. I'd like to do it some more. Here are some places I'd like to go:

• A cruise. I've never been on one, and the idea of traveling on all that water makes me nervous. But everyone I have talked to who has been on one has RAVED about the experience.
• Europe. I've never been to France and I'd really like to see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe some day. I'd also love to go to England (they produce such wonderful cross stitching magazines and I wonder if there are things I could find there that I can't find here) and Italy.
• Washington DC. This was a trip we actually took this summer. We loved the whole experience!
• Disney World. We've been twice before as a family, but it would be fun to go again - see how things have changed, enjoy it now that my son is a little older.
• Football Hall of Fame. We are a football-loving family. I'd love to check out the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
• Lambeau field. I would LOVE to go to a Packers game at Lambeau, but I would settle for another trip to training camp with a tour of the Hall of Fame and the Pro Shop.
• Comic Con. We've become a comic loving family. The idea of seeing some of our favorite stars and enjoying the costumes and ambiance appeals to me.
• Hawaii. I have a cousin in Hawaii and I'd love to go visit him.
• Arizona. I have family there as well, plus I'd like my son to get to see the Grand Canyon!
• BEA. Book Expo America. Not necessarily a family trip, although the conference usually takes place in NYC, which would be a great place to go as a family. And the idea of being surrounded by books and authors and publishers and booksellers and bloggers and book enthusiasts makes me giddy.

Have any recommendations for me? Good places you've been or places you'd like to go?

Rules at School

There are certain things I hear myself say over and over during the school year or things I do without fail. Here are a few of them:

• "Use a shelf marker." Nothing makes this librarian crazier than kids who pick out a book, decide they don't want it, and then they cram it in any old spot on a shelf.
• "You don't get to ask - they ask you." When parents come in for lunch with their kids, they sit at a special table and can ask one friend to sit with them. With the younger ones, there are always a few who will stand at the table and try to make their case for why they should be asked. Sometimes they even try bribery. I try to shoo them to their seat so the kids at the parents table can make the choice without pressure.
• "Real food first." When we pass out a treat in the lunchroom, or the little kids ask me to open their pudding or other desert item when the first sit down, this is my standard response.
• I refuse to answer questions from swarm of students at the start of a class. This year I plan to be a real stickler about this. I wish I had a snappy phrase for them. I once heard someone say "I am not a tree and you are not a woodpecker," in response to a child poking them in the arm over and over and over. Love it! I need something clever for this, too.
• When kids in the lunchroom want me to open something for them, but they just hand it to me, I say, "Oh, for me? Thanks, but I'm not hungry right now." Or some variation. They have to ask - and say please.
• "Chew, swallow, talk." Kids have to raise their hands in the lunchroom to get our attention. Often, when I get to them, they have their mouths full of food and they try to ask their question. I'll either wait for them, or I'll tell them to chew and swallow and I'll come back in a minute so they can talk.
• I will not open something that the student has already been chewing on in their own efforts to open it. If possible, I'll hold a napkin over the item to open it, but if I can't do that I tell them they are on their own. Maybe that's too tough, but between the sniffling and the nose picking and other habits, germs are rampant. I try to protect myself wherever I reasonably can.
• I always carry a little chocolate in my apron pocket for lunchroom duty. I think every day requires a little bit of chocolate, and lunch lady duties just amplify that need.

Did you notice that most of those rules involve my work in the lunchroom? Yeah, me too... I think it's the nature of the beast!

Rules/Routines at home

We run a fairly tight ship at home - at least we try. I could only come up with eight, but here are some of our rules/routines:

• Bedtime - we try to make sure our son gets at least 10 hours of sleep a night. Some nights he goes right out. Other nights he lays in bed waiting to sleep. At his age, it is hard to know when he'll need the rest and when we can give him more leeway. The bedtime routine is a chapter or two of a book, prayer (each one of us takes a turn), and a song. We try to do the bedtime routine together as a family.
• No TV/video games during the school week. When I work late, my son and his buddy play on the computers at school, but otherwise, we try to limit his screen time. Over the summer, when he has a lot more freedom, there are days I wonder if the computer/TV has sucked out his brain. He can't afford that during the school year!
• Furniture is not for climbing. I find it interesting when my son's friends come over and I find them standing on a couch. It's just not something we do here.
• In the same vein, when we are somewhere with a flight of stairs, the rule is that "stairs are not a play place." I do not understand the fascination my son and his cousins have for playing on the stairs. I don't know if that enclosed space feels like a fort or if it is a novelty for kids who live in one-story homes.
• Family dinner - we eat together every night. During the week, we generally eat at the table. Eating in the living room is a treat (although, in some seasons of life it happens more often than others). Thankfully, my son is young enough that we can pull off family dinners with little angst.
• Homework first. This was a tough one to sort out this summer as my son was working through a summer workbook. Over time I realized there was less hassle for me if I just made him a list of his chores and responsibilities and let him manage it. If he wants to watch TV or play on the computer in the summer, his list has to be done, first. It worked well. During the school year, since we stay after school to work most days, we try to balance school work and play.
• Books and toys need a home - a shelf, a box, a spot in his room. My son often hears, "put that in its home." We try to weed out his things at least once a year, passing clothes and toys on to Goodwill and passing books on to the school or public library. It helps make space so new things can have a home.
• Monday is pasta night. This gives my husband and I leftovers to have for lunches. Last year, Wednesday night was eating-out night. Wednesday was my longest day at school and the idea of cooking when I got home held no appeal. The decision to eat out simplified my Wednesday and made me feel better about the whole day.

What routines do you use at home to keep life and family manageable?

Ten Things I Do Before School Starts

These are things I do every year as a mom, plus a few things I am adding now that I am teaching, too. These are in no particular order.

• I set a budget for school supplies and back to school activities (t-shirt, pictures, year book, etc.). It keeps me from being overwhelmed by financial surprises that hit all at one time.
• I buy school supplies for Writing Club (pencils, folders, paper, composition books) - even the things I won't use until the end of the year because the prices are better now than they will be in April.
• I troll around on Pinterest for bulletin board ideas, school lunch inspiration, etc.
• I clean out my school email so I have a fresh start when the new emails start rolling in
• I organize or re-organize my spaces, in the hopes of having a good system in place when the new year starts. In my mind, nothing is worse than starting the school year with piles because I don't have a system in place to maintain all the papers and information and ideas that are churning around during those first few weeks.
• I take notes - lesson ideas, bulletin board plans, etc. If I don't write it down, I won't remember it.
• I keep my to do lists close by at all times. The ones I started using this year have lots of space for note taking. I staple each week's pages together and carry a month's worth with me at all times so I can write down meetings or plans as they come up. These also help me visualize my schedule and divy up tasks across the week. One day, I left my to do lists at school and I felt like I was missing part of my body. Usually I wait until late December or January to get my calendar because I want a better price, but I will likely buy the 2013 version of this calendar the minute it is out so I know for sure I will have it.
• I blog ahead - like I am doing now - so I can focus on my back-to-school tasks without the pressure of my blog schedule or without taking a few weeks off.
• I wait a couple weeks to start Writing Club. This helps my students adjust to their new schedule and new class before adding an extracurricular activity. It also helps me do the same. It frees up a few afternoons to do set up, organizing, and planning.
• I try to plan out my year, as much as possible, knowing that things will come up to change those plans. I also know, from experience, that some plans are going to bomb and I will need to adapt. But it helps to have a plan to start from. My goal is to have lesson plans done for the first 3 weeks at a minimum, with at least a sketch or an outline for the rest of first quarter, by the time I show up for my first official teacher work day.

What do you do to get ready for the school year? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Top 10 Sources of Inspiration

Inspiration is a big deal to me - I crave it. These are some of the things that inspire me.

10. Music - give me a Bach Brandenburg Concerto (#3 is my favorite) or an a capella performance (especially a men's quartet), and I am a happy woman.

9. Photographers - I love to look at photography blogs and the photographs of my friends. One of my favorite parts of our West Wing tour of the White House was staring at the photographs on the walls.

8. Stacy Julian - her philosophy of memory keeping, her class at Big Picture Classes, her crafting space

7. Becky Higgins - her philosophy of memory keeping, her Project Life system, her crafting space (I recently watched a video she did on managing the papers her kids have from school - I was inspired to bring order to my memory keeping chaos)

6. Ali Edwards - her photography, her transparency/openness about her journey, her love of her family

5. Fabric Stores/Quilting Stores/Cross Stitch stores - I love the potential represented by these places. The fabrics, the patterns, the finished samples. I just want to soak them in - just like I wanted to do with the photographs at the White House.

4. The zoo - Seeing different animals makes me appreciate God's limitless creativity. I am especially inspired by birds. I don't know why, but I am drawn to them.

3. Book stores - talk about potential! Words, ideas, pictures in endless configurations!

2. Magazines - just like book stores, magazines give you access to ideas and places and products you never knew existed.

1. Pinterest - every time I tell myself I'm just going to hop on to look for a minute, it turns into an hour or more. Infinite creativity of other people.


What inspires you?

Top 10 Magazines

My interests are reflected in my favorite magazines. Some of these are ones I subscribe to, but the others are regular purchases every month or two.

10. Better Homes and Gardens Storage - at least, I think BH&G is the one that publishes the storage and organization magazine I like. This isn't a monthly publication, but looking at all the orderly spaces in other people's homes inspires me.

9. LEGO Magazine - Fun building ideas, cartoons, and product descriptions. And it's free! What's not to love? In fact, I like it so well, I have subscribed to it for the school and my students have gone crazy for it. In fact, I took an old issue and tucked it on a bottom shelf so my son would have something to look at in a pinch if I was working after school, and the kids grabbed it and tried to check it out. It wasn't cataloged in the library, but I let them check it out anyway. They were diligent about returning it every week, but they checked it out so much it started to fall apart. It was easily the most popular magazine in the school's library.

8. Cross Stitch Collection - this is a British stitching magazine. I don't have a local stitching shop anymore, and Hobby Lobby rarely changes their stock. This is a great way to get new patterns. I figure for the price of the magazine, I would have gotten two patterns at my local shop, so if I get two patterns out of the issue, I've gotten my money's worth. I enjoy the Joan Elliott patterns they have in this magazine.

7. Where Women Create - I mostly look at this one for inspiring spaces and crafts moreso than because I know who these women are.

6. Shop Smart - Just like Consumer Reports but has a more feminine layout. Same great ideas and recommendations/reviews

5. School Library Journal - book reviews and articles for school librarians.

4. World of Cross Stitch - another British stitching magazine

3. Cross Stitch Card Shop - this British magazine specializes in card patterns. While it is my favorite stitching magazine, it is also the hardest one for me to find. I think my local B&N still has the May/June issue on display. When I find a new issue of this one, I feel as though I've won the lottery.

2. Booklist - this is another book review magazine with a library slant, but with a full range of reviews (adults, kids, fiction, non-fiction, audio, professional) as well as a special emphasis in each issue (mysteries, science fiction, sports, historical fiction, etc.)

1. Publisher's Weekly - Week after week of book-related news. And even better? Twice a year they devote a whole issue to upcoming titles for children/teens. Perfection!


What are your favorite magazines? Ones you subscribe to or ones you treat yourself to every month?