What do all teachers need to do on the holidays?
I’ll give you a hint.
It starts with “r” and ends with “elax”!
Yes, yes, come January there will be planning, printing, laminating, decorating, filing and meal prepping to do, but right now it’s time to channel your inner Elsa and let it go!
However, while you may crumble into an exhausted, inanimateball at the beginning of the term break, there’s little doubt that uncontrollable impetus to plan down to the micro-second will recover quickly. It’s at this point you’re going to want to find something to do!
If you are still more than a fortnight out from your return to school, put away those lists. Switch off the light on those new classroom decor dreams and carve out a chunk of time for YOU.
Teacher Holiday Ideas Criteria
Whatever activity you decide to do in this chunk of “me time” needs to meet the following criteria:
- It must be 100000% unrelated to school, teaching and the field of mainstream education.
- It must invoke feelings of joy and/or happiness and/or relaxation and/or bliss.
- It is something that you’ve never done before.
- It can be executed with minimal detailed planning.
Wait! Don’t stop reading! We’ve got this for you…
We know you’re tired.
Your 2017 brain has melted, dribbled out of your ears and been washed down the shower drain (we’re glad you’ve had a shower). The last thing you need is a somewhat cheeky blog post instructing you to figure out a holiday activity that is relaxing AND meets a set of clearly articulated, carefully crafted, exquisitely defined criteria.
Never fear, the ideas are here! Hyperlinks and all.
5 Perfect Teacher Holiday Break Ideas
(1)Read a mindless book.
Pick your genre. Pop culture. Romance. Your favourite thoroughly annotated non-fiction text about the evolution of the common housefly. Anything! As long as it is not the kind of book that makes you create a mental list of things you could or should be doing in your regular teacher life to be “better”. Holidays certainly aren’t the time for that!
You are a teacher. You are already AMAZING! Give your tired brain a bubble bath with a mindless read.
(2) Recharge your soul.
Your mind has been working hard this year, but your soul has been working harder. The rollercoaster of emotions involved in caring for small humans is an intense one!
Right here we are going to encourage you to do something that might be totally new to you. It’s the most beautiful, completely effortless act of self-care.
Aromatherapy.
If you haven’t heard of this equally wonderful Brisbane-based company, Perfect Potion it’s time to look them up. With sustainability and ethical manufacture at the heart of what they do, Perfect Potion has a beautiful range of aromatherapy, self-care and lifestyle products. From oils that you can put into a diffuser to aromatic mists, balms, room sprays and body care products, find the vibe that you need most and bring that into your world!
The relax range, massage oils, facial care and Chakra balancing products are our favourites for teacher relaxation.
The kind soulsat Perfect Potion are offering Teach Starter readers a 10% discount both online and in store from 13 -31 December!
Just use the code TEACHCALM online or mention it in one of their beautiful stores around Australia.
(Please note: this offer is not available on already discounted items.)
(3) Remember life outside four walls.
Teachers thrive on routine. Which is great during the school year because we’re sure to be in the right room, at the right time, most of the time… But there’s a word in that previous sentence that you need to break free of.
“Room”
Get outside of four walls! Don’t replace your classroom, the school library and staffroom with your own lounge room these holidays. Give yourself the gift of experiencing something more!
If you get stuck for ideas when someone tells you “get outside and do something” Red Balloon is the perfect place to start! Sure, Red Balloon feels a little like a “gift” website – that you’d usually treat someone else to an experience they’d never organise for themselves. Therein lies the challenge for you. Choose something YOU would never organise for YOURSELF!!!
Check out Red Balloon’s Deals page for some awesome, discounted experiences ranging from the adrenalin rush of white water rafting on the Yarra River, to a relaxing hour spent in a float tank (or eating a whooooole lot of chocolate everythings at a fancy high tea!).
Or, even better, take a look at Red Balloon’s Christmas Deals for Two and split the cost with another teacher friend who really needs to get out!
(4) Take a [FREE] hike!
If you’d rather save up those pounds to spend on classroom display bits and pieces for your classroom next year, then this one is for you. It will get out of your house and out of your head. It will remind you how beautiful the world around us is. It will have you discovering parts of your local area that you maybe never even knew were there…
Take a hike!
Trail Hiking Australia is an AMAZING website created by hiking enthusiast Darren Edwards. The search function on the homepage allows you to find all kinds of walks and hikes in an area close to you.
Are you a seasoned, hiking adventurer? Set the filters to find a new multi-day hike!
Are you a seasoned, walk-from-one-end-of-Westfield-to-the-other-and-back-again adventurer? Set the filters to find a new short walk!
(5) Discover something new.
For the fifth, and final suggestion of this list of things that all teachers need to do on the school holidays, we are going provide you with a simple step-by-step process to follow.
Kind of like a lesson plan, but better, because it’s not a lesson plan.
Step 1: Go to Google Maps on a desktop or laptop computer.
Step 2: Zoom out from your current location.
Step 3: Zoom out again.
Step 4: Zoom out again.
Step 5: Zoom out a few more times until the map shows you places you’ve never been before.
Step 6:Decide on which vibe you’ve experienced less in your lifetime – city or country?
Step 7: Click on the “explore” menu/tab thingy in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. This will reveal a plethora of images that people have shared from various locations on the map.
Step 8: Choose a place (city or country – whichever is less your ‘norm’).
Step 9: Pop the place into your favourite kind of accommodation portal (are you ready for another AirBnB experience? Or maybe you’re more a reservation.com kind of explorer!)
Step 10: Book yourself accommodation for a night or two, in this place that you’ve never been before, and GO!
Do it. You deserve it.
Seriously, just do it. Choose one (or more) of the inspirations on this list and go.
Of course, there will always be other things you “should” spend your time and money on. But honestly, you have worked SO hard this year. You give so much, physically, mentally, emotionally to help your little humans learn how they can be the best version of themselves in this crazy, complex and busy world.
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