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.
We’re planners, in that we like to have as many things done in advance as possible. During the pandemic season, we found controlling the small things made not knowing or being able to plan for the big things easier to manage.
Here are some of our favourite things to do on our break:
Go for a walk
Maybe take a picture of a flower or a tree? Breathe. Drink something refreshing. Lots of towns and cities now have maps and apps to help you find great locations. Keep track of the places you like.
Nothing is like fresh air, but don’t forget to take some water and maybe a pet or a friend if you like to chat along the way.
If you can’t get out into nature, try walking around a local school field or park. Walking on the grass is completely different than walking on the concrete or a paved sidewalk.
If you’re more into exercise, turn your walk into a jog or full-out run.
Get Birthday Cards Organized (or any holiday you and your loved ones celebrate)
One of the best things I started doing was buying all the birthday cards for my family members over the summer. No one in my family has a birthday during the summer break, but most of the birthdays land during report cards and very busy school seasons.
I make a list of everyone on the list and head out to the store to pick out a special card for each person on the list.
If I need to mail the card and the person isn’t moving, I will address the envelope and put a stamp on it. If they’re more transitional, I will place a sticky note on the card.
In my planner, I will make a note of the birthday one month before the birthday to remind me if I need to get a gift or send something by mail.
Most importantly, I put the cards in a place will I remember where they are so they can be mailed throughout the year.
Have a nap
Maybe outside in a hammock or in a lounge chair? Having a little downtime in this hyper-productive world.
Naps are always better if there’s a little sun (set an alarm to prevent sunburn) or a cozy blanket. A snuggly pet can add to the comfort (assuming your giant dog doesn’t hog the hammock). Pets love a teacher on break.
Talk to the people who live with or near you
Host a barbecue or a movie night. Visit face-to-face with your friends. We wrote this before the pandemic, so you may need to take some safety precautions to make sure everyone is safe.
You can do this online via Google Meet or Zoom or even just over the phone.
Teachers have this innate ability to find each other in the wild, but the conversation often goes to school or teaching, so if you’re avoiding this kind of chatter, play a game to keep the conversation light.
Enjoy your hobby
Whatever that is, do it. Share it. Talk about it. Hobbies are those things you do for fun (and don’t get paid for).
Don’t have a hobby? Well, it’s time to get one. Maybe you should plant something and watch it grow? Is it time to learn a new skill in the kitchen? Maybe you should start collecting something (as a teacher, chances are you already have a substantial book, pen or sticky note collection).
Over the years, we’ve explored many different hobbies and have managed to figure out which are right or wrong for us. Your hobby doesn’t need to cost money or require a lot of space.
One hobby I picked up is reporting false or misleading content on social media sites. It’s really sharpened my research skills and does a good deed for the planet. I reserve that one for the rainy days.
Play with animals
If you don’t have any of your own, go to your local rescue shelter and snuggle the kitties. Nothing makes you feel better than cute animals.
If you have allergies, look up cute cats online. This way you get all the cuteness without the sneezing. We also recommend looking at baby animals or exotic underwater creatures. Underwater is very calming (and we don’t mean Shark Week).
Prepare Until the Next Break
What can you get done while you’re a teacher on break that will help you during the day-to-day?
We cook up extra meals and make lunches. Most of these are frozen ahead in small portions. This way when Friday rolls around and lunch-making is the last thing on your mind, you already have a meal prepared that just needs to be thawed and heated.
We usually cook up a turkey, chicken or ham with lots of extra vegetables and portion them out. I can usually get about 12-15 lunches prepared.
Soups are another great lunch idea and a batch of soup can provide a few weeks of lunch.
Be sure to label all your containers well with the dates. This way you won’t have to guess what the orange clumpy thing is-it’s soup from August 9!
Clean Out Your Closet
A break is the perfect time to get rid of some of the old clothes that don’t fit, have stains/tears or just don’t wear them. Freeing up the space will make you feel better and if the clothes are in good condition you can donate them to someone who will make better use of them.
Shoes count too. Get rid of the worn-out old ones that make your feet hurt. They are just taking up space that you can use for more important things in your life.
Every year we clean the clutter from our house. You should read that post: Clean the Clutter or download the checklist in the Resource Library. We can send you the checklist when you sign up for our email list.
Read or Watch Something Fun
Full disclosure. I’m not a fan of professional reading. I just hate it. I would much rather watch a TED Talk or attend a professional development session (which I don’t want to do during a break). This means I try to watch things for fun. This way I refresh my brain and have downtime (because I know what my brain is like during school).
We hope you notice that none of these things have to do with “school.” The best possible thing you can do for your students and coworkers is recharge, refresh and repeat as much as possible so you can be ready for anything throughout the year.
This includes a good murdery podcast. Some of our teacher on break favourites are Crime Junkie, Once Upon a Crime, Crime Beat and Canadian True Crime.
Do Some Puzzles
Puzzles come in all shapes and forms and are great for exercising your brain. Whether it’s a good old paper puzzle or a book of word searches, taking a little time to stretch your brain each day is great. This teacher on break loves a good puzzle for a brain workout.
Our favourite puzzles are logic puzzles. In fact, the only thing I love more than solving logic puzzles is making them for my students. If you like them, try a free one from our TpT Store ($USD) or our BN Shop ($CAN). We have a complete set of Back to School Logic Puzzles available in our TpT Store ($USD) and our BN Shop ($CAN) which can be done on paper or using Google Slides and comes with twenty puzzles.
An app we enjoy is called Suguru and it’s available for free on the Apple App Store. It’s a little like Suduko, but the puzzles are slightly different and there are hundreds of them.
Take a Trip
This does not have to be a full-blown vacation (but if you want to do that, go ahead). If that’s not a possibility, pack a picnic lunch and drive to the other side of your city for a different view. It doesn’t have to be all day and can be very cost-effective. A teacher on break can be very resourceful.
I tend to search online for pictures of places in my city from Instagrammers (because they tend to find some of the best places). If your city has a hashtag, check it out. There are probably all kinds of things you didn’t even know about the very place you live.
Lower Your Expectations
Don’t worry about making a big list of things you hope to accomplish on your break. Instead, pick one or two things that are reasonable.
Let me tell you about the fence. Somehow I thought the two weeks I had off in November would be enough time to build a fence. Turns out, when the lawn is under a foot of snow, it’s not a good time to try building a fence.
My time would have been much better spent relaxing before entering report card season. Instead, I had to finish the fence during report card season-in DECEMBER when it was cold and snowing.
It’s okay to leave big projects to bigger breaks.
Let Go of the Guilt
If you are a planner, you probably like to use some of your time off to plan and organize things for your school year. If that’s you-no worries-do what makes you happy. Some people find organization helps. If that’s you, then do it, but remember you only have a limited amount of break time, so try to squeeze in some not-school-related time, too.
Some people do nothing on breaks related to school, great. If that works for you, then that’s wonderful that you’ve found a way to make it work.
Personally, I’ve found that in order to relax my brain, I have a limited amount of work I do on breaks. This is just enough to get me through a day or two upon return and over the years that amount has become less and less. Instead, I’ve tried to make sure I do that work before I leave school before the break whenever that is possible.
And it’s not always possible. Lots of things get in the way of planning-mostly changing plans and lots of times that’s not in your control.
I try to stick to planning things that will work no matter what the situation is. Sometimes that just means picking out a book I’d like to read and having a backup just in case. Sometimes it means knowing where certain activities are so that I get them ready in a pinch.
Scrolling on Instagram would have you believe that all teachers spend their entire breaks laminating, cutting and prepping lessons. You don’t have to, but you can if you want.
Whatever you do on your break is your choice and you don’t need to justify your choice to anyone. Just enjoy the break!
What are your favourite things to do while you’re a teacher on break? How do you handle your school guilt? Or if you don’t have school guilt, what’s your trick to it? Let us know in the comments below (but not if you’re going to accidentally check on your schoolwork by being online!)
