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Rachel May
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Our public schools are out for two days for "teacher work days". Now last night as I was making Latin flash cards at 10 pm it occured to me that I might be able to use a teacher work day. Bill was game for it, but I want to make it a real work day--not a day off--and I'd love some suggestions about what YOU would accomplish on a work day. It would have to be out of the house so he could be home with the Magnificent 7.
Thoughts?
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Rachel
Thomas and Anthony (10), Maria (8), Charles (6), Cecilia (5), James (3), and Joseph (1)
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Mackfam
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Rachel - This year for the first time I have scheduled for myself a teacher work day on the first Monday of every month. It has been wonderful!!!!
Here's what I do....
***Tidy Schoolroom shelves - dusting as I go
***Tidy my shelf and review the number of teacher's references out
***Tidy kid's shelf to reflect the latest studies
***Freshen nature shelf - set out next month's seasonal study focus
***Review Liturgical calendar - plan celebrations and teas for solemnities and feasts. Make list and file.
***Freshen Feast Table (family altar) with the season's theme or focus
***Evaluate baby and toddler play centers - refresh
***Put away Montessori materials that are no longer used
***Review Montessori presentations I want to make that month and assemble trays
***Review upcoming subjects - any special projects to plan for? Make a list and file.
***Enchanted Learning - check for other monthly celebrations on Monthly Activity Calendar. Print pages and file for those days.
***Tidy and dust shiny, new desk. 
I really like how the teacher's days have been working out. It lets me reflect on a monthly basis if a focus or topic or way of study is working or not and make adjustments rather than an all out panic mid-year (which I have done before.) Plus....I like to plan with pretty notebooks and lists. 
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Jen Mackintosh
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violingirl
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This sounds like a great idea!
Ideally I'd be at home with my printer to make copies as I need them, but if I had to be away I would take my laptop to the local coffee shop and hang out there for awhile. I'm continually bookmarking sites to go back and review when I have more time, plus all my school-related files are on the laptop.
I'd also work on the next few unit studies (all that is in files on the laptop) and check through montessori materials to evaluate what needs to come next and which materials need to be put away.
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Mackfam
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Rachel May wrote:
| It would have to be out of the house so he could be home with the Magnificent 7. |
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I'm sorry Rachel - I missed this part because I was so excited to share with you my teacher's days....I suppose absolutely nothing on my list would be helpful if you weren't home. I think I'd be a frustrated mess if I were spending a teacher day away from home and was unable to work in the school room.
Let's see...outside the home...you could....
***bring a few books and plan the next month's preparations/projects in that subject
***bring your liturgical calendar and make notes on it for various tea times and celebrations
***jot down ideas of play centers you want to set up
***bring your favorite catalogs with you for some window shopping or for inspirational ideas
***work on the next month's library list
I'll see if I can think of some other ideas to work on outside the home! Sorry for my off topic response earlier!
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Maryan
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I love this idea Rachel! But I think I'm with Jennifer that my list of things that I would want to accomplish would all be at home. So I'm pretending that Dan just gave me this offer... hmm..I'll have to come back.
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Maryan
Mom to 6 boys & 1 girl: JP('01), B ('03), M('05), L('06), Ph ('08), M ('10), James born 5/1/12
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Natalia
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Having a work day outside the home would involved careful planning- I am the kind of person that most likely would go to wherever I was going and realized I forgot some important items.
I think if your homeschool is not as hands on, Montessori-ish, you could get one of those rolling carts and put in all you need- a calendar, a planning book,supplies to make flash cards,etc and head to the library. You could probably get one of the study rooms there. If you have a laptop you could do your internet based research there and if it involves dealing with Word documents and printing maybe you could email those things as attachments to yourself and then print them at home.
How frequently would you have this work day?
I think that if you do it monthly, you will need to tote less material with you. Or maybe you could have an in home work day once a quoter or term and then a monthly (shorter) work day outside the home.
If I had a work day right now I would;
-revise my menu plans and grocery lists
-review our chore plans and make sure I have lists that detail what needs to be done in each room.
-go over lesson plans for my 1st and 5th grader.
-make a list of what I want to do for teatime including recipes.
-make a list of art projects that I would like to do at some point (sometimes we have the chance and i don't have anything prepare) and draw a supply list.
Oops I need to go now, if I think of something else I'll post later.
-
First, I would decide how frequently I need to have it
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Natalia
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mooreboyz
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I did this the first few months this year, but I need to go back to it. I did an afternoon off, on the 3rd Monday of the month. I gave the kids a "dear" (drop everything and read) afternoon so I could do this. I did many of the things mentioned above, but also ordered all library materials for the following month which is why I chose this day. I originally thought of this because otherwise I end up spending most of the weekend planning and copying and searching the net. It was quite useful. I think I'll plan this for next Month. Also, the kids are getting jealous of the ps's pff days for snow and cold. I tell them and they agree that it seems more sensible to work when it is cruddy out and then take off days in the spring, but I can understand.
Things to do away from home:
copies
searching for materials on net like movies.games/crafts to go with lessons
library ordering
unit study planning
gather supplies for experiments and art
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Jackie
7 boys - 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17 years
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Rachel May
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mackfam wrote:
| I think I'd be a frustrated mess if I were spending a teacher day away from home and was unable to work in the school room. |
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I needed you to say that because it's true and I had completely overlooked that. For the price of a BK lunch (one with an indoor playplace), I can get the kids out for at least half the day.
Then a trip alone to the libary to settle accounts, browse new books, make Latin flash cards...and think.
Lunch at Panera to lubricate the mind (with coffee), write things out, and use the free WiFi. Big print jobs can be sent to Kinkos, and little ones I can save until I get home.
Jackie--great thought on the shopping for supplies.
A few people mentioned looking ahead in the lesson plans, and if I do that, I can see what I need to buy and at least make a list.
Natalia wrote:
| First, I would decide how frequently I need to have it. |
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This was a lightbulb for me. I would have based it on what I know of the public school  (why?), which is that they get these 2 days this week (I don't know if there are others). Now, I see that since I already plan in 8 week blocks with a week off for fun science, it makes sense to plan work days to match them.
Maryan, I figured you would have had them from your teaching days and would already have a plan! 
So here's another question....how many people here already do work days? Surely we all need them, right?
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Rachel
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Maryan
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No... Seton didn't have teaching days!! Thankfully Mrs. Carroll was all bang for your buck. Other than before Thanksgiving and Easter, the only time we have half days are during exams... and there was no planning then -- just madly grading! Thus I'm totally ignorant in the art of teacher days!
So Rachel that's why I think you're brilliant (among other reasons)!
One of the reasons I'm so behind this year is due to my lack of plans. I like the every 8 weeks idea, the BK lunch for them, and the later Panera set up for Mom!!
I'm glad everyone else has half a brain and could come up with great suggestions.
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Maryan
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KC in TX
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Wow, that's a great idea. How do you get someone in to watch the kids? Does dh watch them? I don't want to spend a Saturday doing that but I guess I could if I truly need to. I like doing this once a month and getting all the monthly plans done. More things to ponder. Maybe I'll send a link to this thread to dear hubby. 
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Kristie 4
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My teacher's day out these days consists of a nice earl grey steamer and my knitting needles....just the time out with no obligations does my teaching more good than all the planning these days!
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Kristie in Canada
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Rachel May
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KC in TX wrote:
| Wow, that's a great idea. How do you get someone in to watch the kids? Does dh watch them? I don't want to spend a Saturday doing that but I guess I could if I truly need to. I like doing this once a month and getting all the monthly plans done. More things to ponder. Maybe I'll send a link to this thread to dear hubby. |
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KC, Bill has 79 leave days right now because he couldn't take leave while he was in school, and just sort of does't take leave at other times . I figure burning 4 a year won't really make a dent, so it's just coordinating around his work schedule. He said plan it to make a 3 day weekend into a 4 day weekend.
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Rachel
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Mary G
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Another way to do teacher workdays is to get a couple of moms together, a big house, have the family come and kids play and watch each other (think of it as a "field day") while the moms talk about what works, what doesn't, what they're using ... basically do a data-dump with other hs moms.
I also do an unscheduled teacher workday after a big project is finished, if I've got something I just HAVE to finish, or we're changing tack due to lack of interest or something just not working. On days like this, I put a sheet on the floor and dump the legos, k'nex or playmobil on the floor for them to play ... or put on a video that deals with what we're studying (for instance, one day they watched the musical 1776 -- which was a great way to get a chunk of time while the kids "did" American History!
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MaryG
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Rachel May
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Mary, I'm adding that to my queue!
I was thinking about your kind of day too. I was thinking that Kristie's day a "mental health day" and yours I think of as a "mentoring day" or a curriculum fair.
I wish I could be more productive with unscheduled time, but I'm such I slow thinker, I need to know my day is coming so I'll be mentally prepared. You have that gift of spontaneity it seems.
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Rachel
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mooreboyz
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Ditto what Mary said above. Give the kids some independent educational work to do...like a movie or use toys to create a scene from history you read recently, challenge them to see how many pages they can read in 2 hours, an art project, putting together that model you never got around to, or give them a list of several things like this to do and they can rotate through them throughout the day.
During a holiday week I gave the boys a math and movement Monday morning. They rotated through stations 20 min at each one: yoga, computer math game, circuit of push ups/siups/weights, mult timed drill, boxing the bop bag, logic math worksheet, and whatever else. They loved it and they stayed busy the whole time.
I think doing a planning day is totally feasible with the kids...you just need to plan for it.
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Jackie
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mrsmurphy
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I probably need to schedule this! I go go go until we all burn out, and then it all shuts down for 3 days or so, and then we go go go for a few weeks, and then it all shuts down again!
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Mary G
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mrsmurphy wrote:
| I probably need to schedule this! I go go go until we all burn out, and then it all shuts down for 3 days or so, and then we go go go for a few weeks, and then it all shuts down again! |
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Well, as long as you don't burn out TOO MUCH , this is exactly what we do ...
you can schedule teacher work days but I've found it works better if we just go until a natural break (either from their side or mine ) and then take it for a day or more.
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MaryG
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Leonie
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Mary G wrote:
| you can schedule teacher work days but I've found it works better if we just go until a natural break (either from their side or mine ) and then take it for a day or more. |
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I also find we tend to have natural breaks, times when we just need to take a breather from some things or need to go out more or go out less, time for me to mentally regroup re homeschool/parenting/house/work. To re-work things, get resources together, re-organise.
That said, I am thinking of setting aside something like the morning of the first Saturday of each month for this sort of regrouping. After mass. Dh is usually home on weekends so he could spend that time at home woth the kids..Still pondering this..
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Rachel May
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My work day is Friday, and I have to admit that my personality plays a large role in the fact that it must be planned and the kids must be gone. I need long stretches of quiet to think, and even little easy interruptions can make me  when I'm deeply pondering something important to me. 
My preliminary schedule is:
AM
*clean/dust/declutter school shelves
*declutter toddler toys
*double check science supplies
*order history, science, and movies for the rest of the year
*buy classical pieces we need from i-tunes
*put potential poems to be memorized into files ready to be printed
Noon--
*Adortation and Mass
*lunch with the kids
Afternoon--
*buy running shoes
*at Barnes and Noble, read over the lesson plans for the rest of the year, making notes and lists
*put Mommy It's a Renoir cards into folders
*make Latin flashcards
*check calendar for Feasts coming up
*chart characters to be added to history timeline
*go to the library
*look over how to paint book for art study
I planned too much on purpose, and I'm taking a second day in March. That one will be for planning my potential curriculum purchases for next year. I'm sooo excited!
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Rachel
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Maryan
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I love it Rachel! Inspired by your idea, I did a miniversion... but decided it was more mental health than teacher prep.
So my Saturday plan was lunch, read by myself, shop for the few things that we need, and go to confession. But I spent so much time at Target looking at the various versions of antennas (for the eventual switch over) and reading and wondering which would work... that I missed confession. So next time I need an alarm clock to keep me on schedule. Time flies when you're by yourself? Or who knew antennas would be so rivetting??? 
Anyway, I love your idea! In a few more weeks basketball will be over and I will do the same to plan out our spring lessons! I'll post my list then!
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Maryan
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Teacher Work Day
