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Recharging Teachers:Things that teachers can do in the summer to re-energize them for the new school year

A very appropriate article for this wiki page! Can we do all 10?????



Here's a list of some of the things WE'RE doing to get recharged:

**//My Interactive Summer Fun Haiku//**Time to get away, / Relaxing, playing, thinking, / Learning some new tricks. OK, I'll pretend I'm not teaching summer school and I will list the other things I do!

> No dishes? What a deal! We are recharging by going to see shows in the citycar-talk-the-musical > and by trying out new sea food recipes[|clams]
 * My eleven-year old daughter is helping me to do this! One of the things that I'm doing to recharge myself this summer is to spend time hanging out with my kids and husband (hence the teacher's aide next to me!) but another is creative writing. On a long drive out I-90 to upstate New York a "eureka moment" came to me and the idea for a middle grades/young adult novel sprang into form. The first line came to me: "My teacher Mrs. McLaughlin told us never to assume because when you assume you make an ass out of you and me, and boy, that was never truer than when a 600-lb. Harley-Davidson hydroplaned around Route 127 and landed, smoking, in my grandmother's hydrangea bushes." On the way home, fewer muses visited, however, we bought some succulent kohl-rabi, chard and hot-house tomatoes from a Colrain, MA farm that had camped out at a rest-stop: http://transportation.blog.state.ma.us/blog/2010/04/massdotfarmers-market-program.html
 * Working at summer camp (free food, no dishes, life on a lake in Vermont!) and taking kids on a canoe trip to the Adirondacks in NY state!






 * I have escaped to Maine. Check out [|www.peaksisland.info]. There is great ice cream at a store called "Down Front." I am car-free here. I enjoy riding my bike on a 4 mile loop around the island, where I go by long stretches of rocky shoreline. Next week I start work at a summer camp in Portland.
 * One of my favorite parts of summer is eating fresh seafood! I am always looking for good restaurant recommendations. If anyone has solid recommendations, I would love to know. Let's use this page to share our favorite places to eat!

I am de-cluttering my closets, my desk, my head! And as I'm purging, and taking the useful "stuff" to Boomerangs and Savers to be re-sold to benefit good causes, I happen upon the July/August issue of Harvard magazine with a related article titled, "Omnia Mea Mecum Porto: All That's Mine I Carry with Me gains popularity" by Neil Porter Brown. It highlights Priscilla and Brent Donham, who've down-sized and shed many years' worth of stuff, feeling freer and more clear-thinking with every "thing" relinquished. Inspiring! Check it out, at http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/07


 * Still teaching! I am teaching kids, aged 7-12, how to cook! It's messy but fun! we've been making lots of summer jam, bread, cobblers, quiche, and it's only week 1! :-D

Went camping this weekend at Russel Pond New Hampshire. I love that campground. It's very serene and beautiful. There are no reservations though, which is good news for those of us who like to spontaneously go (like us), but it also means that you have to get there pretty early to get a spot by the lake. Still, most of the sites there are pretty good. We had our friends scout out earlier so they got us this wonderful spot.I can't say that it was very restful (not with an 18 month old to run after) but you can't beat swimming in the lake, or looking and the sky and seeing the stars at night. My kids would say - you can't beat marshmallows on a stick in the fire... Besides hanging around the pond, we went to do some sight seeing. Since we wanted to take it easy, there were no heavy duty hiking. We went up Cannon mountain via a tram and did some walking on the peak, but isn't it a great view? If you're going with kids, the Lost River is really fun for them as well. It's a bit of a tourist attraction (a flume with caves along the way to explore), but the kids love it. Yael