Hello all and I hope you had a lovely Christmas with whomever you were “allowed” to surround yourself with.I spent the holidays with my close family and enjoyed some quality time at home this year rather than visiting our favourite mouse in Florida. We are thankfully booked in for next Christmas as we are hoping the world will be almost back to normal by then or at least it will be safe to travel.
As we look forward to 2021, I find myself thinking about that time of year when everyone makes some resolutions for the new year. Mine have always been teaching related. Whether it be creating a fundraiser, making a basketball event for the school, planning soccer tournaments or this time last year, we were looking toward to the strike hopefully ending. Being virtual this year and knowing that we are in another lockdown, I find it hard to plan short term. Therefore, I am thinking about making long-term personal goals this year.
- To see friends and family more. I think during the regular year I am always focused on what I want to do. The pandemic has allowed for lots of “me time” so I will look forward to planning gatherings with all of the new babies that were just born in my friend circle. Sadly I have not held any of the new babies as they were all born in June, July, November and two weeks ago!
- I will also look forward to re-booking a trip with my sister which was cancelled March Break 2020. I was so looking forward to travelling with her and hope to re-book soon.
- I look forward to re-doing the backyard of my new home. When I bought this house two months ago, the only thing which needed fixing was the backyard so I look forward to doing that in spring 2021, along with building a deck.
I hope everyone else is looking at the future in a hopeful way and not feeling too sad/stressed with the second lockdown in effect. I am interested in hearing from any virtual teachers if they have any exciting first week back activities. I find it hard to plan during the two week break and always leave it towards the end. I was thinking of continuing with my Monday morning activity “Brag, drag and goal” and maybe I will make that goal a New Year’s Resolution for my students as well. I also start off every new year with an essay writing activity about the MVP of the previous year. I always find a good youtube video about famous people who had a successful year in whatever field they are in. Then, students brainstorm who they nominate and write an essay about why they deserve the award. This is a fun but educational way to wrap up the previous year.
Let me know if there is anything else you have planned 🙂
Wishing everyone a happy new year and here’s to more moments with friends and family in 2021!
