Teacher Feature-Sherrie from Middle School Math Rules!

Hi fellow TBA readers.  My name is Sherrie and I am the author of the blog Middle School Math Rules!.  I am so honored and excited to be featured today as a guest blogger at TBA, it was one of the first blogs I followed when I started my own teacher blog last summer.  I am a very busy teacher/mom with three boys ages 13, 10 , and 6.  I spend most of my summer watching baseball and running my boys to various sports camps and practices.  I do love the summer because I think it is a great time to refresh my teacher spirit and to plan fun and innovative activities for the upcoming school year.  

The place where it all goes down!

I teach 7th Grade Math and am a Middle School Math Liaison.  Being a liaison is not as glamorous as it sounds, it means I attend a lot of extra meetings!  I love to blog about anything related to math or middle school, two of my favorite subjects.  I also enjoy sharing tips on goal setting and organization, because after twenty years of teaching middle school, I have learned a thing or two about how to maximize the results of the effort and time I spend in the classroom.  I love to share tips that help make the lives of other teachers easier.  The world of teacher blogs has opened my eyes up to a community of teachers collaborating with each other across the globe and I love being part of that community.

Summer is the perfect time to regroup and take stock of your life, both personal and professional.  After the dust settles from the end of the year excitement/chaos you can really focus on what went well this past school year and what you would like to improve for next year. It's easier to spend time reflecting when you do not have the day to day challenge of everything involved in teaching and managing a classroom.

I think it is really important to take a day or two, or more, to decompress after the end of the school year.  Some years end on a high note, but sometimes they can end with lots of stress and uncertainty for the future.  Giving yourself an adequate amount of time to chill and regroup is something every teacher deserves.  Do something fun and make sure you spend some quality time with your loved ones, especially if they were put on the back burner while you finished up the school year and packed up your classroom.

Once you are ready to get serious about the changes you want to make for the next school year, it's important to start out with a plan.  If you just surf the internet looking at ideas on blogs and Pinterest, you can quickly overwhelm yourself (I know this is true for me).  There is so much information and so many fabulous ideas at your fingertips (literally) that it is easy to lose focus on what is truly important to you and your classroom.

My advice is to start off by making a list of accomplishments from the past school year that you are proud.  Remember you deserve to celebrate your success.  As teachers we need to focus on what went well and build on that success.  After that, think about what you want to accomplish for the coming school year.  Consider it a road map to give yourself the best chance of reaching your destination, in this case, to be well planned for the start of the coming school year.

This is just a sample of what you might want to reflect on for the coming school year.  Remember the key is to make this work for YOU.  Take this idea and adapt it to best fit your personal needs.  There is no right or wrong way to plan, as long as you do have a PLAN that works for you.  

I hope you have enjoyed the information I have shared with you.  If you are not already a follower of my blog  Middle School Math Rules! please stop by and say hello.  I would love for you to join me, you don't have to teach math or middle school to get some great information from my blog.  I also have lots of teaching related boards over at Pinterest with excellent ideas no matter what age or subject you teach.  Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know me better!  I would love to share more ideas with all of you.

-Sherrie