How Teachers Can Get a Jumpstart on a Stress-Free Winter Break [episode 168]

Emily  0:36

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we’re sharing our system for planning your December and January lessons in advance so you can enjoy a stress free winter break. And we have a handy tip to help with any upcoming class parties.

Heidi  0:52

We start our episodes with a morning message, just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is, as a teacher, I know I can always come to you if I need blank. And we had some fun and some thoughtful responses from our Facebook community.

Emily  1:09

Yeah, Katie said, stickers. My friend’s mom keeps buying them. So I have so many.

Heidi  1:15

People love to give stuff to teachers. I have inherited so many things from friends.

Emily  1:21

Ally said chocolate.

Heidi  1:23

Oh, she’s who you want on your team.

Emily  1:24

Yeah, that’s exactly what I was gonna say. Shannon said all the various painkillers and assorted other meds, like Tums, Pepto, etc, I’m like a walking pharmacy for my fellow teachers.

Heidi  1:36

That is an underrated role in the school. But yes, you need to know who you can go to when you’ve got that headache creeping on at two in the afternoon, you know.

Emily  1:45

True. Holly said a children’s book for a particular reason or lesson. Perfect. Natalie said, anything? Vent? Got you. Chocolate? I have a vending machine. Resources. What do you need? Advice? Let’s chat, and I’ll make you some coffee.

Heidi  1:59

Wow, that is quite the team member.

Emily  2:02

I know I want Natalie to be my teammate. April said, black lines for unit tests.

Heidi  2:07

You don’t know how much you appreciate that till you can’t find them.

Emily  2:11

Yep. And Shannon said, understanding for a difficult year. We’d love to have you join the conversation over in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Heidi  2:21

If you are listening to this episode the day it comes out, you know it is early November. However, we are going to take a little time travel journey into the mysterious future of 2025.

Emily  2:34

What’s that time travel sound effect? Wait, is that from Wayne’s World. Wait a minute.

Heidi  2:41

Oh wait, her 90s are showing.

Emily  2:45

Well 2025 does sound like it should be way in the future and not two months away like it actually is.

Heidi  2:52

Yeah, it’s so crazy. But whether we like it or not, it’s coming for us. If you were like I was as a teacher starting back after winter break was rough.

Emily  3:03

Oh yeah, that’s the biggest cold shower is that day you have to go back after winter break.

Heidi  3:08

It’s so hard, it’s dark and cold, and all the pretty, sparkly holiday decorations are gone, and life is just back to normal.

Emily  3:18

But normal life feels somehow worse because there isn’t anything fun to look forward to.

Heidi  3:24

Yeah, our spring break was so far away. It was, it was always in April, and sometimes it was like mid April, because my birthday is mid April, and I frequently had spring break during my birthday. So that meant three long months, two report cards, and many, many days of inside recess stood between us and our next break.

Heidi  3:42

I have a very vivid memory of sitting at the end of my bed when January 1 and watching the sunset and just feeling completely overwhelmed by how much I was dreading the next month.

Emily  3:54

And it’s even worse, if December has you so weighed down you can’t even get anything ready for January before break starts. That means spending your winter break working or intending to work, but not actually working, and then your whole vacation is spent with stress and regret and resentment.

Heidi  4:12

That was me 100% I was just barely surviving December, as you do, and so preparing for January wasn’t anything I could even consider that point. I just knew that that would mean going into school on my days off to reset my classroom and figure out what I was gonna teach when those kids came back.

Emily  4:30

Yeah, and we don’t want that for you, so let’s see if we can save you from a similar fate. I think we all hope to get ahead of the game, but making those hopes a reality can be tricky to manage, and that makes sense. For most of us, planning ahead isn’t part of our regular routine, and so we’ve already got enough to do just planning for next week.

Heidi  4:52

But even if we somehow do make the plans, how do we add the extra work to an already busy day to get all of those plans prepped?

Emily  5:02

And that’s what we’re going to help you figure out today. So we’re going to start by helping you figure out what you need to plan, and then help you make time to get those plans in place.

Heidi  5:12

Back in July, we launched our December teacher survival kit. If you happen to grab it back in the summer, dust it off now.

Emily  5:20

But if you haven’t added anything to it yet, make sure to download the updated version, because we added a few new pages, and you can find a link to that in the show notes.

Heidi  5:29

If you have already added some content to your December survival kit, you can just download the new version and then copy the new pages into your existing sheet. It’s very easy, I promise, and that way, you don’t have to retype anything.

Emily  5:43

With your survival kit in front of you or a sheet of paper if you don’t have the survival kit, we want to start by getting a picture of where things stand as we go into the holiday season, and clarify what needs to happen.

Heidi  5:55

By starting your planning with identifying your why. And I don’t mean it that manipulative sense that administrators love to throw out. We’re talking about your specific why. So for example, I’m doing these things in December so I can enjoy my break and start January feeling prepared and refreshed. This ensures that the plans that you’re making are actually the plans that you need.

Emily  6:17

It’s so easy to get swept up in the fun and excitement and stress and craziness that comes this time of year.

Heidi  6:24

And that is how we end up doing things that don’t really matter, or neglecting things that are important. Focusing on our why first helps us prioritize what’s most important.

Emily  6:34

If you want to hear more about the importance of starting with why, check out episode four of our new podcast, the Holiday Head Start. That’s a deep dive into the different layers of intentional planning, which is something we love. We shared that episode of our new podcast here on the teacher approved podcast feed. So if you haven’t seen it, you can scroll back and find it and listen to it now, or you can come find us on the Holiday Head Start.

Heidi  6:59

But for now, let’s just focus on December and January in your classroom. In the survival kit, there are 14 journal prompts to help get your gears turning about some important questions. So basically, we need to figure out what is happening in December, what will be happening in January, and what needs to happen in December to get ready for January.

Emily  7:19

Taking stock of where you are and where you’re headed is how we get the right mindset for the craziness we are about to encounter.

Heidi  7:27

And that is the first key for thriving as a teacher in December. Besides taking stock getting in the right mindset, includes considering what we want to experience in December. What are we saying yes to and what are we saying a hard no to.

Emily  7:42

The second key for thriving in December is to use the right tools. A lot of that comes down to managing the fluctuation of structure and novelty that comes with the holiday ramp up season. And that’s in capital letters, holiday ramp up season. It’s a season.

Heidi  7:57

We’re not gonna dive too much into that today, but go back to episodes 103 and 104 if you want all of the details.

Emily  8:04

That brings us to our third key for thriving in December, make the right plans. Now is the time to make that time travel journey hop into your TARDIS or DeLorean or your time machine of choice.

Heidi  8:18

Yeah, we don’t gate keep time machines around here.

Emily  8:20

And set the dials for the wild and mysterious day of late January, 2025.

Heidi  8:22

As you exit your time machine in this foreign land and you look around at your classroom at the end of January, what are you so glad you did in December? Those are the things we want to make sure to get done. So let’s talk about how to make that happen.

Emily  8:42

Start by taking a look at your December calendar. Just like we planned the first day of school, we’re going to plan December by adding our fixed events. The most important fixed event is the start of winter break. Not only is that the happiest part of your calendar, but it’s going to determine a lot of other important details.

Heidi  9:01

Once that’s in place, you can add your other fixed events. When is the high school choir coming to perform? When is the school’s pajama day? And with all of that fun stuff on the calendar, you need to create the fixed event for the last day that you are teaching new content.

Emily  9:16

As a teacher of children, the goal for December is to finish teaching your content before the holiday hype really takes over, or the holiday travel.

Heidi  9:26

Both of those, right? There’s just definitely a point where trying to teach something new is going to be pointless. The kids are too distracted, some are absent, and you’re going to end up reteaching everything in January anyway.

Emily  9:39

Even though it might feel like you’re making progress on your curriculum, you’re really just creating more work for yourself in the new year. So this is where having a clear stopping point comes into play.

Heidi  9:49

The stopping point will be different for each classroom, but find a day, a few days before the break, when you will just stop teaching new material.

Heidi  9:57

So for example, the last day of school for our local school district is a half day on Friday, December 2. Wednesday and Thursday of that week. You just know are not going to be very productive. So I definitely wouldn’t want to teach new content on those days, but then you’re left with this lame duck Monday and Tuesday. So what do you do about that?

Emily  10:13

Well this is where it can be tricky. If I take off Monday and Tuesday from covering new content, that means the last day I’m teaching new lessons is Friday, December 13, and that feels too early to be my stopping point. However, there’s no way I can effectively cover a full weekly unit on that last week of school. I just end up re teaching everything in January.

Heidi  10:34

I think if it were me, I would schedule my stop new content date as December 13. That means I will have covered my math units for the month, my phonics content and anything else that has to stay aligned with a pacing guide. But then I’m going to use Monday and Tuesday of that week as my backup buffer days.

Heidi  10:52

If I get behind, I have a little bit of wiggle room to catch up. Maybe I’m going to have to teach two math lessons on Monday, but I think I could make it work. However, if I do stay on track, we can switch to review, and then I won’t have to worry about new lessons at all that week.

Emily  11:07

Once you set up the stop new content date, you’ve got two lists to start, one for all the stuff you need to prep to finish December, and another for ideas to fill the rest of the month with meaningful but easy activities.

Heidi  11:21

In the December Teacher Kit, there is a page for listing all of the lessons and assessments you need to cover in December. And there’s a page for gathering ideas to fill the rest of the time where the children will show up.

Emily  11:33

Ideally we want to gather ideas for independent student activities. There’s a few reasons for this. So first, as you know, the excitement is high at the end of December, you may be tempted to check if your students secretly have Mountain Dew IVs shooting straight into their bloodstreams. How we balance that much novelty is by increasing structure.

Heidi  11:54

Once way to do that is to do more activities that don’t require a lot of mental effort. A subtraction color by number page may be way more useful than your daily math centers when your kids are already so squirrely.

Emily  12:08

The second advantage of independent work is that it frees you up to get some of your own work done. If the kids are reading or doing a review page that gives you a few minutes to catch up your grading or switch out a bulletin board.

Heidi  12:21

With your bank of ideas handy it’s time to schedule your no new content days. Because you’re not teaching new content your daily routines may be a little bit off, so you might want to create a non traditional daily schedule. And your main goal with the schedule is to keep things calm. So do what you can to maintain your routines.

Emily  12:41

You especially want to keep your morning routine. If your kids feel discombobulated right out of the gate, you’ll be fighting a six hour battle to get your class to settle. But after your routine and predictable morning, how you handle the rest of the day might take some creativity.

Heidi  12:56

So with my non traditional school days, I tried to keep the routine normal, but I would keep the activities light. So my regular morning schedule was morning routine, writing, recess, math and lunch. After we did our normal morning work and morning meeting, instead of starting our writing routine, I’d have the kids do an independent writing activity that maybe incorporated some seasonal fun.

Heidi  13:19

By doing that, I maintained the structure of our routine and even added a little extra structure because we’re doing an independent activity. But by making it seasonal, it felt like a treat and not a punishment.

Emily  13:33

If you’re intentional introducing novelty doesn’t always lead to more student overwhelm. Sprinkling a little carefully chosen novelty into a day that might be tipping into chaos is a way to increase engagement. And if the kids are excited and focused on what they’re doing, the excess energy in your class is channeled productively, instead of shooting off like fireworks.

Heidi  13:55

That’s why I chose activities like learning about Arctic animals or writing a job application for working at the North Pole instead of working in groups to write plays about Santa getting stuck in the chimney. Three days before winter break, I did not have the bandwidth to manage that level of silly excitement, even if the kids would love it.

Emily  14:12

So what else did you do to keep your non traditional schedule structured but engaging?

Heidi  14:18

Well, another key piece for me was a work packet.

Emily  14:23

Oh, of course, if you’ve listened to our podcast before, you knew that we were going to talk about work packets sooner or later in this episode.

Heidi  14:30

I know if you’ve never done one, it does sound like a bummer, but a packet of 12 to 16 seasonally themed worksheets, and we like to reduce them by half so we could fit four activities on one sheet of paper. It can just be such a lifesaver.

Emily  14:44

And it’s the seasonal theme that makes it so special. Yes, the kids might be doing geometry practice, but because there’s a snowman on the page, it feels like a treat.

Heidi  14:55

Another tip for getting mileage out of a work packet is to incorporate a few just for fun pages. If you’ve got a word search in with the math and language worksheets, it elevates the whole experience.

Emily  15:08

Yeah, I aimed for around four just for fun pages, and then split the remaining pages between language arts and math review. So if I had a 12 page packet, there were four fun pages, four language for math pages. If I had 16 pages, there were four fun pages and 12 academic pages, you get the idea.

Heidi  15:26

And we didn’t just pick those numbers randomly. Because we’re putting four activities on one sheet of paper, because, you know, those copies add up. Our total page count has to be a multiple of four. If you’re doing a four page or an eight page packet, you might want to cut back a little bit on the fun pages.

Emily  15:45

Yes, it does sound lame, but every class I’ve taught has genuinely been excited for a packet, especially if you don’t overuse them at other times of the year. Then when you do use it for the holidays, it feels really fun and special.

Heidi  15:57

So as I’m going through the day, I would use our normal math time for work, packet time. It has some math pages in there, right? Totally counts as math. After this, my class would go to lunch and specialties, and then when they got back, it was time for science or social studies.

Heidi  16:11

And in my special pre holiday schedule, I always just used that time for a 30 minute video, usually something from PBS. So you know, it felt academic. And then it was reading time. We’d end the day with another low key seasonal activity, and then it was time to clean up.

Emily  16:28

Having a set routine for your non regular school days makes planning so much easier. Then every time you encounter one of those non regular school days, you know exactly what types of activities you need to plan and prep.

Heidi  16:40

If you noticed, in my non traditional daily schedule, we weren’t doing any centers rotations or small groups. Part of that was to tame the overwhelm, and part of that was to give me some time to get my work done. Obviously, you don’t want to do this long term, but I promise you, your kids will be fine if you skip small groups for a couple of days.

Emily  17:00

And while the kids are busy with their work packet or watching a video, you the teacher can be busy getting ready for the next few weeks of school. This is what we call a pocket of prep. It’s a few minutes the teacher can grab to tackle a pressing task.

Heidi  17:15

We’re going to talk more about this in the next episode. But the key to being productive in these few precious minutes is knowing exactly what you need to get done.

Emily  17:25

So to do that, you’ve got to start by looking at your January calendar.

Heidi  17:30

Just like with the December calendar, we add our fixed events First, add any important dates, like the first day back after winter break. If you’re using the calendar in the survival kit, there is a little digital sticker that you can use to mark that first day back.

Emily  17:45

Once all the fixed events are added, we can add our flexible events. The most important flexible event is your resume new content date.

Heidi  17:53

Just like we scheduled the day in December when we would stop teaching our regular units, we want to schedule when in January we’re going to start the back up. This can vary wildly depending on when you return to school, and it can vary wildly from year to year, so it’s kind of hard to make plans.

Emily  18:08

Yeah, if you’re starting back on a Monday, you might need to count the whole week as a regular week of content. That means you might have a little time on Monday morning for a warm welcome, but then you’re back into the groove.

Heidi  18:19

However, if you are starting back on a Wednesday or Thursday, what are you even going to do? In the survival kit, we have a place where you can gather fun and meaningful activity ideas. Maybe you want your students to set goals for the upcoming semester. Maybe you want them to make a time capsule or write resolutions. There are lots of fun ideas out there for celebrating the start of a new year, and that can help fill out some of those random days.

Emily  18:44

Since your first day back in January is like your second first day of school, we strongly recommend spending some time reviewing procedures and expectations. Choose a few key procedures, and then have your students reflect on how they’re doing with them and what they can do better.

Heidi  19:00

One thing you can do during a pocket of prep in December is set up your procedure review for January. We have a set of procedure review slides that you can edit to fit any procedure. All you really have to add is your procedure name and it’s basically ready to go. Each slide asks students to rate how well they meet your expectations from one to five.

Emily  19:20

So for those procedures that get low ratings, pull out the tell, try tally talk slides that you made for back to school and reteach the steps that have gotten sloppy. There are links to both the procedure review slides and the tell, try tally talk slides in the show notes.

Heidi  19:39

Add all of that and everything else you need to plan and prepare to your January prep list. In the survival kit, there is a list for what needs to be planned, what needs to be copied and what needs to be prepared so that you’re ready to go for January.

Emily  19:52

With your December schedule planned and your January prep list in hand, you are ready to tackle that to do list, if only you can find some time to do it.

Heidi  20:01

And that is exactly what we are talking about next week. So make sure you are subscribed to our podcast so you don’t miss that episode. We will be sharing all of our tips and tricks for how to maximize your pockets of prep so you can get all of this work done during your work hours, and save your days off for celebrating and relaxing.

Emily  20:20

And make sure to grab our December teacher survival kit so you can have all the tools you need to plan and prepare for the next couple months.

Heidi  20:29

We’d love to hear any of your tips for planning and preparing for December and January. Come join the conversation in our teacher approve Facebook group.

Emily  20:37

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week, we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is have a parent volunteer as class photographer. So tell us more about this, Heidi.

Heidi  20:52

Well we mentioned this a while ago, and I think it was probably like two years ago, so it’s probably due for a reminder. If you’ve got class parties coming up in the next few months, when you are rounding up parent helpers to run a bingo game and supply snacks, consider having a parent helper sign up to be the party photographer.

Heidi  21:11

They can just use their phone. It doesn’t have to be, you know, professional photos, but during the party, you have got enough to manage without having to remember to get pictures too. So this is an easy task to delegate and have a parent help with.

Emily  21:24

And I would love to do this job as a parent, because it’s a great way to come in and help, but without having to, like, plan a craft or a game or something, if that is not up your alley. So I would be all over this. Plus, I would love to see the pictures as a parent, to be able to see what they did at a fun class party if I wasn’t there to help. So I think it’s such a great idea.

Heidi  21:44

To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily  21:49

I’m giving extra credit to the book The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. It’s about a witch named Mika who has spent her whole life, hiding her magical powers until she receives a mysterious message inviting her to come teach three young witches how to control their magic.

Emily  22:08

And this was just such a delightful read that Heidi recommended to me. She may have given this extra credit in the past, I’m not actually sure, have you?

Heidi  22:16

I don’t think I have.

Emily  22:17

Good I didn’t have time to check, but I just always love something a little witchy to read in the fall.

Heidi  22:23

And it’s so cozy and sweet and like witchy, cozy, sweet. What more do you need in the fall?

Emily  22:28

I know, and the whole ensemble of characters is very sweet and lovable. So two thumbs up.

Heidi  22:34

I’ve already pre ordered the next book from the author supposed to but it’s not coming out till the spring, so darn. Gotta wait.

Emily  22:40

What are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?

Heidi  22:42

My extra credit goes to the Teacher Created Resources Germ tracker kit. So I was recently doing a presentation on hand washing with some kids, and I remembered that our school nurse used to do a glow germs lesson with my students, and I wanted to recreate it.

Heidi  23:01

The germ tracker kit comes with a little container of glow powder and a UV light. You have the kids rub the powder in their hands at the start of the lesson, and then you do your little presentation about germs and hand washing. And at the end of the lesson, you use the UV light to show them all of the places they have touched and spread germs too, because you know, anything they’ve touched with those powdery hands will now glow.

Heidi  23:24

So you send your kids to wash their hands, and then you check the light to see where they’ve missed. And you know they’ve missed between their fingers and fingernails and all of that. It’s a very good hands on way to make invisible germs suddenly very visible.

Heidi  23:40

You can find tons of resources online for glow germs, if you want a lesson to do with your class. And when I was looking at Amazon, which is where I got the powder, one of the reviews said that the powder was easier to apply with a makeup brush. So I just grabbed a $3 brush, and it was a lot of fun. The kids had a great time. If I ever do it again, I will remember to use more powder. I think I was going a little too light, and so it didn’t transfer as well as I wanted. But I, you know, got the point across.

Heidi  24:08

And I will say that the UV light in this kit is pretty cheap. It took some finagling to get it to stay on. And of course, I didn’t check this until right beforehand, so I was sweating a little bit. It did work out fine. It just took a lot of like getting perfectly battery aligned with the handle, but it did work.

Heidi  24:28

So if you buy this kit, though, I would recommend testing out the light in advance. In case you want to buy something a little more reliable. There are links to the germ tracker kit and the $3 makeup brush in the show notes.

Emily  24:41

That’s it for today’s episode. Grab our December teacher survival kit so you can get a start on your January plans now, and don’t forget this week’s tip to invite a parent to photograph your class parties.

Heidi  24:53

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a five star rating and a review. Ratings and reviews are so helpful to us because they help new listeners know that our show is worth listening to.