Teacher Tuesday: New Year's Resolutions

Yesterday I shared my 5 tips for creating meaningful goals. Today I'm linking up with Aileen Miracle to share my new year's resolutions for 2015! Click on the picture below to go to the linky party and see everyone else's posts.

Personal: Spend at least 2 hours a week with friends
As the girls get older and I adjust to my new town, new home, and new job, I think it is actually feasible for me to achieve this goal. It certainly is something that I need in my life! It may sound strange to plan out "hanging out with friends" time, but I have made a specific action plan to try to make this happen, with a mix of phone calls to old friends, adult time with local/new friends, and play dates together with the girls. I really want to make it a priority to develop and maintain my friendships, old and new, this year!

Professional: Be more involved in district-wide department events and planning
Last year I was "the new girl" in our district's music department, so I tried to listen and follow everyone else's lead when it came to organizing district-wide events and developing the district-wide curriculum (aka I was so swamped with trying to figure everything out in a new job that I used my newbie status to avoid as much extra work as possible). With some experience under my belt in this new job, my goal this year is to pull my weight for the department! We have an all-district honors choir that performs in the spring, so I am going to try to be more involved in the full rehearsals and the logistical planning of the event. I also want to collaborate with my colleagues to work on the district's music curriculum, now that the new national standards are in effect.

Classroom: Implement more "Music In Our Schools Month" advocacy 
I have always made a HUGE deal out of MIOSM in the past- I do lots of events in music class, put up visuals around the school to promote music education, and do some school-wide events as well. But last year, again because I was new to the position, I wasn't able to do everything I wanted. This year I want to pull out all the stops again! There are quite a few homeroom teachers in my building that do not recognize music (or any other subject they don't teach themselves) as an important subject, and I have really been feeling that this year. Increasing emphasis on the new standardized tests certainly doesn't help matters. I really want to focus this year on advocating for the importance of music education through bulletin boards, notices home, and other communication with staff, parents, and other members of the school community. I've already created this bulletin board set that I put up in my hallway to advocate for the importance of music, and I also got these wonderful posters from Lindsay Jervis for the hallway to help people recognize that music is a "serious subject" like any other. The wheels are turning with other ideas to advocate even more during the month of March!

Blog/TpT: Spend at least 1 hour per week on products
I started this blog, and my TpT store, because I needed a creative outlet. And I have enjoyed every minute of the journey so far for that very reason. It has been amazing to connect with other teachers and share ideas, and to see others be able to use ideas in their own classrooms and homes! I really want to make it a goal to set aside a little bit of time each week to working on products- whether that means creating something new or updating an existing product- so that I don't end up with tons of ideas swarming around in my head, begging to get out (which is what has been happening so far!).
P.S. If you've considered starting your own TpT store and/or blog, you may want to check out the teacher entrepreneur planner pages I made to help myself stay organized with all of it- they have been really helpful to me!

Just for me: Get more regular haircuts
I'm a little embarrassed to even admit that this is a goal of mine, but honestly, I really struggle with taking the time to make myself a hair appointment and then go get my hair cut. It's not even like I am getting something really time-consuming, like coloring or a perm, done. I just always think about the 5 other things I could do instead, look at my hair in the mirror, and figure, "one more week won't make that much of a difference...". Except that it does. My hair is so much longer than I want it to be- trust me when I tell you, this is an important goal. My hope is to get it cut at least every 3 months, but I hesitate to commit to that, so I'm just going to say I will get my hair cut more regularly and leave it at that.

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Mommy Monday: 5 Tips for Setting Meaningful Goals

Well, Christmas is officially past and New Year's is almost here. Did that go by extra-fast for anyone else?!? Goodness gracious.

This week is winter break for me so I am trying to get my life in order (emphasis on TRYING) before school starts again. One of the first things I did was sit down and think about how I have been using my time this past year, and how I want to improve so that I can focus on the things that matter most to me.

I made these goal-setting worksheets this past summer when I was starting my blog and TpT store, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't losing sight of my priorities when I made those additional time commitments. Now that I've been at it for a while, I wanted to go back and re-think what I am doing and revisit my goals from the summer. With New Year's coming, I figured the timing couldn't be better anyway! After going through this a few times, here are my tips for meaningful goal-setting:

1. Write it down

I'm sure this is not the first time anyone has heard this idea, but it really does make a difference when I write things down. I used to spend time at the end of each year reflecting on the past year and making goals for the new year, and often I would even share those goals with my friends and family, but I never wrote them down- it just seemed like an unnecessary step. But when I write down ideas I am forced to be more concrete and I can keep the written copy somewhere where I will be reminded of my goals more regularly. 

2. Start with where you are right now

One of the most helpful things I realized, when I was thinking about how best to set goals, was that I needed to start by taking stock of my life as I was currently experiencing it before I could really decide on what changes I wanted to make. The first thing I do is write down every little thing that I spend time doing (on the sheet titled "my commitments"). I write down things mundane things like cooking, non-negotiable's like teaching and grading, and fun things like spending time with friends. I try to think of anything that I spend time on and write it down. I used 3 categories- home, teaching, and online- to help me think of everything. 

3. Choose your priorities

The next step is to look at that list of things I currently do and see if, first of all, anything is missing that I want to add. Then I look through everything and figure out what my top priorities are. I suppose if someone else looked at my list they would see that exercise is missing. Too bad, healthy people. It ain't happenin'. I know that for now, running around with children at work and at home is enough to keep me active, and exercise for its own sake just isn't a priority for me. But I did notice that it was missing and make a conscious choice to continue excluding it from my life :) 

I looked over everything on the first sheet and made a list of my priorities in ranking order (the sheet titled "my priorities"), then decided how much time I wanted to spend on each of those items. It was really telling, the first time I did this, to think about how much time I spend on items that aren't theoretically as much of a priority. I realized that, even though in theory spending time with friends was a higher priority than social media, I was spending more time on the latter because arranging times to be with friends was so difficult. Having moved a couple of years ago, and having twin infants to single-handedly care for, finding ways to just hang out was extremely difficult (and, to be honest, I think that was OK). Since realizing that imbalance last summer (and recognizing that my circumstances have changed enough to make it more realistic/practical), I have been able to be more intentional about making time for friends (and spending less time on social media). 

4. Only set goals that have a clear reason

I think in the past I would set goals because it just seemed like the obvious thing to do (like exercise, spend more time doing devotions etc). Now I force myself to have a clearly-articulated reason for a goal before I commit to it. One of my goals this year is to spend at least 2 hours a week spending time with friends. I want to do this to foster my emotional health, develop budding friendships with people I have met locally, maintain relationships with long-time friends who live elsewhere, and set an example for my girls of a healthy social life. It is easier for me to feel confident that my goals are worthy of my time and energy when I know I have a clear reason or purpose for working on it. If I have a difficult time coming up with a clear purpose for a goal, I set it aside. I know it won't happen if I'm not clear on why I'm doing it.

5. Make a specific action plan

Clearly articulating my reasons made it easier for me to think through the specific logistics of achieving my goal. Since I want to develop both my local and long-distance friendships, I decided to spend some time meeting up with friends locally but also make time to regularly call my long-time friends on the phone or skype. Since I want my girls to see my example of spending time with friends, I am planning to spend some of that time in play dates with friends with children. I also needed to figure out when I could realistically do it. For me that means making a short phone call to a friend or getting together for dinner with another family on week nights, and planning play dates or coffee with a friend on weekends. I also know that I need to make most of these plans in advance and write them in my planner to make them happen. 

So there you have it: my 5 tips for setting meaningful goals. Have you made any resolutions this year? What are they? You don't need anything special to reflect on your goals, but I've found these goal setting worksheets really helpful for clarifying my thinking- download the printables here if you're interested!

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Teacher Tuesday: Movement Ideas for Winter

Last week I shared 5 tips for incorporating more movement into elementary general music lessons. Today I am sharing a few of the specific movement activities I have done this winter that have worked really well. Even if you have already finished your Nutcracker and Sleigh Ride lessons for the year, I hope these ideas will spark new ones for you as well!

This first activity is a cup routine to go with "Sleigh Ride" that I did with my kindergartners. I saw a video from another music teacher a while ago with a cup routine to the same piece for middle school age students (which I have since lost track of...) and I decided to make a VERY simple version to do with my kindergarten students, since I am seeing them a few extra times before winter break this year. The students loved it, and it was a great way to introduce the concept of form without really consciously discussing it. I introduced the lesson by teaching them the words to the A section ("just hear those sleigh bells..."), and then having them do the cup pattern for just the A section every time they heard it. We then went back and added the B and C sections and talked about the horse sounds (and what instruments they used).

The next set of movement activities go with the Sugar Plum Fairy, March, and Trepak (Russian) Dances from "The Nutcracker". I used these activities with my second graders, and it was by far their favorite unit so far! For each piece I told them to copy me while I did the movements, then we discussed what we did and figured out the form. I then had the students perform the movements by themselves so they could listen to the music and show the form with their movements. For the March and Trepak, we also transferred the rhythms of the movements to percussion instruments. For the Sugar Plum Fairy, we pretended to be painters. I heard the idea of pretending to be a painter with a different piece from another music teacher recently and when I tried it with this piece it fit perfectly!

P.S. Sorry about my appearance- we had an assembly that day...

I hope you find these ideas useful- they were a huge success in my classroom and I will definitely be using them again next year!

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Mommy Monday: Toddler Craft- suncatcher window ornament

As I was coming up with ideas for the girls' Advent calendar activities, I tried to find some easy and fun crafts that we could do together. One of the ideas I came across that I wanted to try was a suncatcher ornament. I saw pictures of lots of different finished products made different ways but couldn't find a good explanation of how to make them, so here is how I ended up making ours. This was a fun and easy craft that was perfect as a Christmas activity, but would be great for any time of year as well.

Doesn't it look so pretty with the light shining through? Here's how we made them:

Materials: clear contact paper, black duct tape, tissue paper, scissors, tape

First I cut out 2 matching rectangles for each child from the contact paper and taped down one of them on the table, sticky side up, for each one to decorate (save the other pieces for later).

I found an assorted set of tissue paper at the dollar store, so I cut a thin strip of each color and cut it into squares or rectangles (depending on how it came out- I folded the strip and cut on the folds).

Then the girls went to town! I explained to them that we wanted the light to be able to shine through so they shouldn't roll or fold the paper. For one of my girls I had to convince her that it was OK if some of the edges overlapped each other. Other than that it was pretty easy!

Once they had used all of their tissue paper, I took the matching piece of contact paper and put it on top to seal the tissue paper inside. Then I cut each piece into smaller shapes. I was thinking of cutting a circle to make it look like a Christmas ornament but the girls both decided they wanted one big rectangle and 2 smaller ones. Then I put some black duct tape around the edges to keep it from coming apart. Since I was doing squares I just cut a piece for each parallel side and cut it in half to make two thinner pieces.

I'm not sure this step is really necessary, especially if you're not planning to keep them for very long, but I like the way it looks with the black edges. I read other posts that said they had used black construction paper for the edges but that seemed like too many extra steps for me! Plus I already had the duct tape.

From there you have two options: attach a string or hook and hang it on the Christmas tree, or tape it to the window. I decided that this year we would put them on the window and maybe next year we will put some of the small ones on the tree. I think it would look really cool in front of the Christmas lights. For now though, we're enjoying having these on our windows:

I put a small piece of double-sided tape on the back and let the girls stick them wherever they wanted. Since they are rectangles we are calling them presents instead of ornaments. It also occurred to me that we could draw Christmas-y pictures on them with a black sharpie. Maybe next year...

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