Revisiting My Summer Goals

I've been asked to reflect on the goals I set at the beginning of the summer.  This post is week 7 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators.  And it appears I re-prioritized (that's usually how I roll).

To recap, the two professional goals I named were to finish my course on anchor charts and try an online gradebook (possibly Google).

My FIL's place.  Top left corner, anyway (it's an apartment).

The reason I reprioritized is because I have been traveling this summer.  Recharging and making time for family (especially when they live overseas) is important and as much as I love to teach and improve my craft, teaching is not my whole life.  So planning for next year has to wait until after my trip.

As for the anchor charts course, I'm nearly finished!  At first I thought I just got a lot of ideas to copy, haha.  But as I progressed through the course I was happy to find that I really was able to come up with some original ideas for my own new anchor charts. 


Other than that, I've been working on a few personal goals and hobbies.  I spent a good deal of time photographing products for my store.  I've been learning to create videos using that footage.  Stay tuned for more on that!


The hobby I've been working has been hand lettering!

I thought hand lettering would be a great hobby for a few reasons.  It's been a while since I've done any drawing, so I thought this would ease me back in.  It also seemed to complement the anchor chart course (I thought it would help me design some titles).  And finally, I thought it would help me build some fine motor stamina.  As I (and everyone else) do more and more work on computers and mobile devices, I struggle to write by hand for any extended amount of time.  I've enjoyed it so far, and I'm considering trying a more challenging book once I finish this one.

What have you been up to during your break from teaching young humans?