The Awkward Octopus Productions

By this point in September, you probably have a much clearer picture of what wants your attention this year.

The emails. The requests. The unfinished tasks. The classroom issue. The thing somebody else forgot that has somehow wandered onto your plate wearing a tiny name tag. 😂

Some of it genuinely needs your attention. Some of it can wait.

And some of it does not deserve nearly as much mental space as it’s trying to occupy.

Finding a sustainable rhythm isn’t only about deciding what you’ll do. It’s also about deciding what you will stop carrying after the school day ends.

🐙 Save this for the next time something tries to take more of your peace than it deserves.

A hard week can make a teacher start doing some truly impressive forecasting.

“This class is going to be like this ALL YEAR.”

“This routine will NEVER work.”

“I have made a terrible mistake.” 😂

But one difficult week is information, not a prophecy.

Maybe something needs adjusting. Maybe a conversation needs to happen. Maybe you need support. Or maybe everyone is tired and Thursday was simply...Thursday.

You’re allowed to respond to a hard week without letting it write the story of the entire year.

Take what you learned from it. Make the adjustment you can make. Then give next week the chance to be different.

🐙 Share this with a teacher whose week has been A WEEK.

Okay, technically the school year has already started.

Which actually makes this a pretty good time to revisit the things we thought we needed before it did. 😂

A perfect plan? You’ve probably changed something already.

A Pinterest-perfect classroom? Your students have now demonstrated exactly how long anything stays Pinterest-perfect.

Last year’s energy? This year has its own students, circumstances, and version of you.

The first few weeks give us information we simply couldn’t have before school began. Use it.

Keep what works. Adjust what doesn’t. Leave behind what you don’t need anymore.

🐙 Save this for the next time you start thinking you should have everything figured out by now.

There is something deeply humbling about making a beautiful plan and then meeting reality. 😂

Teaching provides approximately four thousand opportunities to experience this.

A routine doesn’t work the way you expected. A lesson needs another day. Students respond completely differently than the group you had last year. Something you were certain would work simply...doesn’t.

The temptation can be to scrap everything and start over. But revision isn’t failure.

Sometimes the smartest thing we can do is figure out which part of the plan still works, which part needs changing, and what we know now that we didn’t know when we made it.

I wrote more about exactly that on Substack in my blog post: So Much for That Plan: The Art of Revising Without Starting Over.

🐙 Read the full post on Substack. Link in bio.

By this point in September, the fantasy of having unlimited planning time has officially left the building. 😂

So if you’re looking for something that gives students structure without requiring you to reinvent the wheel for every unit, this is exactly why I created my Science Interactive Notebook.

It includes a teacher guide plus scaffolded and independent instructions, with space for students to work through driving questions, phenomena, changes in their thinking, and honest self-checks along the way.

The goal isn’t just to give students somewhere to put information. It’s to help them see how their thinking develops as they learn.

And yes, having something already built for you is also rather nice.

🐙 You can find the Science Interactive Notebook in my TPT store through the link in bio.

We spend a lot of time at the beginning of the school year noticing what isn’t working.

The routine that needs adjusting. The lesson that took twice as long as planned. The class period that is already keeping us humble. 😂

But what about the things that are going better than expected?

Maybe a new routine actually stuck. Maybe a class you were nervous about has surprised you. Maybe the new policy you spent August worrying about is...not completely terrible. Maybe something small is making your day easier.

Before you start fixing everything, take inventory of what’s already working. Sometimes finding your rhythm starts with noticing that parts of it are already there.

🐙 What’s working better than you expected so far? Tell me one thing in the comments.

September gets loud quickly.

There are new routines to establish, names to learn, emails multiplying overnight, lessons to adjust, policies to remember, and approximately 47 things you meant to do before students walked through the door. 😂

So before all of that becomes the only thing taking up space, here are a few reminders for the teacher, not the to-do list.

Your classroom doesn’t need to be perfect. You need to fuel yourself, too. The things you love outside of teaching still deserve your time. And your impact will never fit neatly into everything we’re asked to measure.

You don’t need to have the rhythm of this year figured out yet. You’re still learning it.

🐙 What do YOU need to remember this school year? Leave yourself a reminder in the comments.