New Year's Resolution Linky Party

Another prompt from Clutter-Free Classroom! This time she's asking about those "New Year's Resolutions" we all make before we go back to school.

My first year of teaching I went crazy overboard with staying late. I'd be in my classroom working until about 6:45 every night (not to mention weekends!) At that time, I had 3 of my own kiddos at school with me and the "baby" at daycare. If I hadn't needed to pick him up by 7pm I probably would have stayed even longer! Now, part of the reason was because my husband was in Korea for a year, so there was not much to rush home to. The other part is that I easily become obsessive and I really wanted to make my classroom work! Of course, spending all of that time was not healthy. My middle son ended up with pneumonia, I had severe bronchitis and strep twice and my youngest had behavior issues from being left at daycare so long (plus not seeing daddy!) Obviously this was not a year I wanted to repeat!

During my second year of teaching I made a vow that I would not spend as much time at school. My husband was home and really didn't like the idea of me hanging around school all the time. Some days I was even out of there by 4:15 and I never went in on weekends! Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well either. I was less prepared for lessons, and I wasn't happy with my classroom organization.

This year my resolution is to strike a balance between those two years. My youngest will be starting kindergarten this year (oh how time flies!) so I'll have all 3 of my boys at school with me. My daughter goes to middle school but takes the bus back to my classroom at the end of the day. So, I will have all 4 kids in the classroom at the end of the day. Obviously they are not going to want to hang around too long, so I have to have a plan in place so that I can maximize my time. I am hoping to leave by 5pm every day and spend one Saturday afternoon at school a month. Here's what I came up with for my schedule:

Hopefully this works out for me, but I feel better at least having a plan. No more of those nights when I'm running around like a crazy woman trying to monitor my kiddos, help with homework and do 20 other things all at the same time - and only doing about 1/2 of it well!

So, have you made a resolution? Head over to the linky party to see what everyone else is vowing to do or not do this year!