Ninja Notes

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What You Should Do On Break Before Back to School

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Are you looking for some ways to enjoy your break from teaching? Try out some of these so you are refreshed and ready for back to school.

Teachers are notorious for never really taking a break. We’re super teachers! We never need sleep or downtime or family. Somehow we feel guilty if we don’t spend our whole summers getting ready for the new school year. If that sounds like you and you’re a teacher on break, then this post is for you.

It’s true-we could spend every waking moment working on our classrooms or planning amazing lessons for our students. Should we feel guilty for not spending every weekend slaving over marking or making resources?

Absolutely not. After all these years of teaching, we’ve managed to figure out that it will still work out whether we spend a thousand hours or three. Summer is a well-deserved break. It’s time to rethink the teacher on break mentality.

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Ten Ways to Procrastinate Right Now

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There’s always so much to do. Before the pandemic, I always thought that I didn’t get things done because I didn’t have enough time. Well, that turned out to be completely untrue because when you’re locked in your house for months on end with nothing to do, these things still don’t get done. I’ve been lying to myself. There are so many ways to procrastinate.

You’re probably lying to yourself too, because you’re here reading this post instead of doing whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.

But why are you procrastinating, and how should you go about doing it?

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How to be a Great Teaching Teammate

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Sometimes co-teaching or team teaching can be a challenge. We've managed to build a friendship and great working relationship after we were asked to share a classroom. Come learn about how to be a great teaching teammate and make the most of your partnership.

Are you someone people like to work with? Or not? It’s too easy to blame others when we aren’t happy in a situation.

We’ve been in the teaching game long enough to know there are certain people we avoid getting stuck on committees with. We know it will be stressful and someone always ends up rage eating.

We will be the first to admit that we have been all the things we’re about to tell you, so take our advice with a grain of salt (on the rim of a margarita is recommended). No one is the perfect teaching teammate. It’s all about reciprocation.

What?!?

It’s about the give and take.

Like I will give you a margarita or I will take that margarita. Wouldn’t that be nice, but…

When things are too much give or too much take, everything falls apart. So, whether you mostly give or you mostly take, it’s time to balance things out to be a teaching teammate.

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How to Create Your Dream Home Office

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Do you take your teaching work home? Is your home office the dining room table or do you have a room? Here are some things for you to consider. Come read the post.

When you work from home, do you have an actual office or are you like so many teachers piling things high on the dining room table or the living couch?

That strategy works, but after a while it can take a toll. We all need a safe, reliable space to work in, but that doesn’t mean you have to break the bank.

Here are some things to consider when designing your own home office.

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Ways to Plan That Work for You

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Are you looking for ways to plan your lessons? Do you use paper or digital? Come learn all the different ways we've tried to create our lesson plans over the years to save you some time. There are even free planning pages for you to use.

You’ve seen those beautiful planners all over Pinterest and on everyone’s social media. They are masterpieces that we wish could emulate, but alas, us ninjas have a lot going on and so our plan books have been an evolution. We realized early on that our plans aren’t pretty and we needed a way to share a classroom and thus, share our plans with each other.

Finding the planning style for you takes time. Here are some of our best tips for figuring out your planning style.

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Less is More: Teacher Wellness Strategies That Work

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If you're looking for some practical teacher wellness strategies, look no further. These ones DON'T require more work and will have you feeling less overwhelmed. In fact, this is all about doing less. Check it out!

Sometimes it feels like teachers are stretched so thin. Teacher wellness strategies are buzzwords, but what does it mean to you?

It’s impossible to do it all. That is when the guilt sets in. It feels like we should be able to do more, but maybe the trick is to do less? Of course, in a perfect world teachers would have input into making these decisions, but a girl can dream, right?

So, what are some ways we do less so that we can experience more? Check out these teacher wellness strategies to balance your mental health with the career you love.

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