What I did on my summer vacation....

Almost every tv show or movie I have seen that has a "first" day of school in it has a scene where the teacher assigns the dreaded, "What I did on my summer vacation". I personally don't recall ever being given that assignment but I thought I would give it a try, especially as today is my last day of summer vacation.

So....what did I do? In summers past I have travelled to England to visit family and the USA for sight-seeing and shopping. When I was quite young I even travelled to the National Ballet School and Royal Winnipeg Ballet school. More recently, I have spent a week each year at Malagash's Family Camp which has allowed my son and I to have a week free of all things normal - no cooking or cleaning for me and lots of playing and beach time for him.

This year was a little different. I didn't do anything other than school work and the odd visit to a friend's house. We had very abnormal weather this summer and so I really didn't feel like going to the ocean. I read a few books and planned what to do with my class this fall. I watched some old movies and did some card-making - really, it was no different than the school year.

My son however, had a very different summer. He stayed at his Grandma's and visited cousins from far away, joined the junior golf program at my parent's golf course, went to Fall's Lake with my Mom and other relatives where he had a week of freedom to run and swim and play with more cousins. He attended a number of day camps and even went by himself to his first week of sleep-away camp at Bayside. In the brief moments in between, I took him to the lake, to visit friends and even a wedding shower for our cousin (poor guy...I think he is too old now to drag along to those any more!). Even now, he is back to Grandma's for one last week of fun and collecting vegetables that he grew in her garden.

All in all, the summer went by quickly and now I am less than 24 hours away from beginning my year. I am really glad that I am not one of those students on those tv and movies I wrote about earlier....I don't think I would do so well on the assignment. Now my son on the other-hand....wow...he would have a lot to write about...

Summer

When people hear the word summer thoughts of hot sunny days lazing at the beach or maybe strolling at the park eating ice cream cones come to mind. Summer can mean visits with realitives not seen for years or maybe a week away at camp. Well, for me, summer means thinking about what I will be doing in the fall....SCHOOL. No matter how many visits I make to Kearney Lake with my son or how many moon mist ice creams we get from Pinkey's or Avery's, I am thinking about school in September. It begins the day I pick up my son's report card. The school year is done, hurray...now I can relax and re-group and have some "me" time. My non-teaching friends say how it must be so nice to have 7 weeks off - they wish they could have that much time off in one stretch - but nope, I don't relax and re-group at all. I don't even think of it as 7 weeks off...to me it is 7 weeks of looking at and experiencing the world as a potential lesson plan....that visit to the lake could become a great art class using sand and saran wrap to make watercolour paints look like the ocean. Visiting and listening to my aunts tell stories about their childhood while at Fall's Lake Campground sends thoughts of autobiographies and creating characters from a different time period that students could write about flying around my head. I tell myself each year that I will not think about school but I can't help it...I am a forever teacher I guess...hmm....maybe my class will do some blogging this year.....