Hey there, folks. It’s been awhile since I’ve written an update here, and when I sat down to write I initially thought that there’s not much to write about. July is a bit of an in-between month for Waldorf teachers. You’ve (hopefully) wrapped up the previous school year, but haven’t quite dived into preparing for the next.

But when I thought about it, looked at my to-do list, and considered how I’ve been spending my days, I realized that there’s a whole lot going on behind the scenes.

One of the things I’ve been working on is putting together a template that summarizes the work of a Waldorf teacher for the year. My vision is that with a clear picture of what they should be focusing on when, Waldorf teachers will stay on top of the work and not devolve into complete overwhelm.

It’s true, being a Waldorf teacher is a huge job, but it can feel inspiring and life-giving when approach from a place of confidence and inspiration.

This is really the idea behind my series of Productivity Courses. Each 6-week course gives clear instructions about the tasks that you should be working on each week, providing supportive PDFs to help you stay on track.

I’m currently registering folks for my Summer Productivity Course, which begins July 28. If you’re interested in registering for this course, click through to fill out the Google form to make sure we’re a good fit. Group size is limited, so I want to make sure that anyone who signs up is someone who can really benefit from the course.

If you’re just interested in learning more about the course, enter your email address below and I’ll send you more information about the course, including a couple of sample emails that will guide your work for the month of July.

Speaking of July, what do I have in store for this month? Here are the tasks that are currently taking my attention.

Finishing Reports

I manage to finish writing my end of year reports by July 1 just about every year. This year is a little different. Because my summer training was very early in the summer and my healing wrist is not up for hours and hours at the keyboard, I’m a little behind schedule. Our school has a commitment of getting them out by July 15, and I’m sure I’ll make that deadline.

Purchasing Resources

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I’m a sucker for new and interesting teaching resources. Just yesterday I cleaned off my curriculum resource shelves, kept the classroom management and growth mindset books there and put the 2nd grade books away in the 2nd grade box that goes in the shed.

I like to keep a frequently used resources shelf in my bedroom and the books kept there are all about the current grade. My Steiner books and general curriculum books go elsewhere, but this shelf is now all about 3rd grade. Some of my favorites and most recommended 3rd grade resources include:

• The Story Bible by Pearl Buck
• A Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays by Malka Drucker
• The Dore Bible Illustrations by Gustave Dore

Getting Planning Supplies

Now, you know how I love beautiful office supplies — it’s one of the things I love about being a teacher. I wrote a blog post a couple years ago about my favorite supplies for planning, which is still a great list of supplies. But my tastes continue to evolve and I’ve simplified some things, refined others. Here’s my current rundown of favorite supplies.

Dick Blick Blank Book — This year when I prepared to head off to my summer training, I could not find my tried and true Semikolon blank book for purchase anywhere. It used to be easily found in my local Dick Blick, but this year I couldn’t even find it online. Instead, I bought the Dick Blick blank drawing book, which I’ve used before and is a perfectly suitable substitute. I miss the lovely linen cover, but I figure I’ll just glue a 3rd grade painting to the front, which will make it just as lovely. This book holds my big picture overview planning and notes. I don’t tend to carry it with me, but pull it out whenever I’m planning a new block. It gets a lot of use in the summer and I pull it out about once a month during the year.

Plum Paper Planner — I confess that because I don’t use this planner daily, there have been times throughout the year when I have neglected it. But truly, there is nothing better for getting yourself organized for the year. The teacher version includes pages for recording class birthdays, setting goals for the year, recording parent communication, and so much more. It’ really great. Because it is fairly bulky and I don’t use it for my daily lesson planning, it doesn’t get the attention it deserves and I thought about skipping it this year, but I think I’ll be much more organized if I go ahead and get it.

If you’re interested in getting a planner of your own, send me an email and I can get you a 10% off coupon for your first Plum Planner purchase. I’m part of their referral program and your purchase helps give me a discount on my own planner.

Hobonichi Cousin — I haven’t written at all about this planner, which I’ve actually used for a couple of years now. I thought I was a planner addict before, but my love for this book has taken my planning obsession to a whole new level. It’s not for everybody, though, and there are aspects of this planner’s set-up that aren’t ideal. For example, because it is made in Japan, it does not come in a US academic year version. My compromise is that I get the Avec version, which splits the year into two books — January through June, July through December. This means I can keep the 2nd half of 2019 and the first half of 2020 together for my 3rd grade planning. The planners are released at the end of August, so I don’t have the full year when doing my summer planning. Definitely not ideal. But this book is a dream to write in because it uses the fantastic Tomoe River Paper, which is smooth and so thin it keeps the book from being bulky even though it provides monthly, weekly and daily pages. The paper is thin enough that you can see ghosting from the other side, but it never bleeds through, even when my fountain pen malfunctions.

I use this planner every single day. The weekly pages get filled in Sunday nights and the daily pages are just barely big enough to fit my lesson plans.

I also use a small notebook, the same size as my Hobonichi, for overflow notes. In the past I’ve used the Rhodia Web Notebook but this year I plan on getting notebooks from Hobonichi, with the same paper I love.

Pens and Pencils — I’ve got a few favorites in this department too. Here’s a quick rundown.

• TWSBI Eco Fountain Pen
• Pentel Energel .05 needle tip
• Kurotoga Mechanical Pencil
• Zebra Mildliners highlighters
• Zebra Sarasa Clip Colored Pens

Getting Organized

I don’t know about you, but during the school year my house and yard often get completely neglected. I usually spend some time during spring break to get a jump start on spring cleaning, but this year I was recovering from surgery. So, one of the first things I couldn’t wait to get to this summer was some cleaning out and tidying up. The teenagers and I have cleaned out our shed, weeded the garden daily, cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and steam-cleaned the carpets.

Relaxing and Exploring

Though my home-days are pretty busy, I’m making sure to devote some time to getting out and exploring. I’ve already road-tripped to the California Redwoods and we’ve got family trips to Las Vegas and Mexico planned. I’m also hoping to spend a couple of days at the Oregon Coast and to get up into the mountains, as well. July is the perfect time for all of this.

In addition to everything above, I’ve been working on plans for the blog and podcast. I’m hoping to produce more content this year and give a little more regular attention here, having stepped back from some responsibilities of school.

What are you up to this July? Leave a note in the comments and share. What should I be doing that I’m forgetting?!