How to Achieve Work Life Balance as a Wife Teacher Mommy with Sarah Snider [episode 47]

You are listening to episode number 47 of Wife Teacher Mommy: the Podcast how to achieve work life balance as aWife Teacher Mommy with Sarah Snider. Did you know that one in every 4 teachers work 60 hours a week and the average teacher works about 47 hours according to Forbes? Kind of crazy but yet it’s kind of believable and we’re talking about how to cut down those hours and get more balanced today intro hey welcome I’m so excited to be here today talking about this very very important topic. Because as you know if you’re listening today being a teacher can just feel like this all consuming job that takes so much out of your planning lessons. You’re teaching all day. You’re attending meetings. You’re checking emails you’re staying upgrading papers. You’re thinking about a student and their personal needs or their educational needs. Heck, you’re even going into work sick because it’s better than writing emergency sub plans. Those can be a teacher’s worst nightmare and your role as an educator is one of just many hats that you wear on a daily basis though like you’re not just a teacher.

You are a teacher but you have other roles in your life too. Like maybe you’re a mom or a dad or a grandparent or a sister or brother and aunt or uncle neighbor community volunteer the list goes on and on. We just have so many things in our lives and they’re all great things. But do you ever feel like you want to be the best teacher you can be without dropping the ball in those other areas of your life and the truth is you can, but we don’t need to go out it alone and that is why I’m here today on the podcast and I’m here with an amazing teacher who’s been a part of our community for three and a half years now her name is Sarah Snider and she is a member of the Wife Teacher Mommy community. She’s been part of our community for over three and a half years she found us when she was pregnant with her three and a half year old and she found our maternity leave. Binder and that helped her out and she talks a little bit about that but she’s been in our Wife Teacher Mommies Unite group like from the beginning. She’s been an original member of Wife Teacher Mommy Club and she is just such an experienced educator in so many ways which you’ll hear about on this episode and she has so much to share with all of you about balancing your life. As a Wife Teacher Mommy y so don’t miss this one keep listening so let me share a little bit about her before we dive in so Sarah got her bachelor’s degree from Bradley University in Elementary Education Spanish Social Studies language arts and a masters in special education from Lyndon Wood University and she’s currently working on an additional certification as a psychological examiner which she talks a little bit more about in the episode.

She’s taught ages from PreK through 12th grade the last and the last six years She’s been focusing on teaching third through fifth in special education and she says she loves her job most days she’s been married for nearly eleven years and her kids are 5 and 3 so she’s very busy. And she is from Kansas City Missouri so or that area at least so we’re going to be diving in today. We’re gonna be talking about how you’re going to find more work life balance as a teacher and how even though it’s easy to get sucked into our jobs and the never ending to do list. We’re going to talk about how we. Say no to that and how we get into finding time for all the other amazing things in our lives so without further ado let’s get into today’s interview

Okay, hi Sarah thank you for coming on the podcast today I’m so excited to finally be chatting face to face. Yeah, it’s been so much fun. You’ve been a part of our Wife Teacher Mommy Community we were just talking before we start recording for like three and a half years now that’s so fun.

Yeah, it’s good to see you.

Yeah, there’s lots of great resources that I’ve been able to take advantage of and use and use in my classroom pretty much every day there’s something with teacher teacher mommy that we are using and pulling off the website.

I love that I’m so glad that you found it like so helpful and that it’s helping you and your students and everything. But before we really dive in. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself like where you’re from what you’re currently teaching your teaching background and just anything about yourself.

Sure I have a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and I also have certifications at the middle school level I have a master’s degree in special education. I’m working on additional certification to be a psychological examiner currently so I will be able to do iq testing and academic testing and behavioral and everything and all kinds of testing on all my little friends. I’ve taught pre-k all the way up to 12th grade.

That is really cool.

A combination of like self-contained classrooms and resource rooms I am currently teaching third to fifth grade special education and it is an adventure every day we never really know what what’s going to come about. There’s very little plan time right now with all the things that get.

Dumped on my plate every day but I I love it the days go fast I blink my eyes most days and it’s like oh I’m late for lunch and so are you. And then my personal life I’ve been married for nearly eleven years I have a 5 and  3 year old so we are. We’re pretty busy house between what our our jobs entail and what our kids require and school work for my master’s program and grading papers and inputting grades and all that that entails and so in our in our downtime our one fun hobby is that we make wine and beer to enjoy on our during our wife husband time that we sometimes get to have together.

Ah, we need that time right? Yeah, so you obviously you have a lot going on with like all your family life and you have this wide variety of teaching experience and you’re working on this additional certification that sounds fascinating I would love to hear more about that too And you also you do your tutoring and everything after school too. So you you just have a lot going on. How do you feel like you balance all that like I guess.

If it’s just hard I do a lot of scheduling a lot of calendars luckily with my kids being the ages they are like they’re not. They’re not involved in all of the sports and everything. At this point they’re they’re kind of. Just kind of starting out their lives as hard as friends we live in the country we have fifteen acres so we go outside and play I don’t they don’t necessarily need to be involved in a sport team per se at this point because we go out. We run and play and whatever else we have neighbors that bring their kids over. My principal lives like over the hill and she has kids that we can go play with. They’re busy a daycare so they don’t have a real full schedule at this point but we’re able to just kind of we. Ah, we have fun. Just the 4 of us going out and doing stuff and hanging out so their calendars and so forth. But I have my calendar at the beginning of each semester of my classes I schedule out what every due date is and start planning ahead working ahead making a plan. Okay well this paper is going to take me. a week or so to write and make sure that I’m starting on it early enough ahead of time that I am able to finish it within reason but also I I really try to not plan to work on. School like my job school stuff on nights and weekends that’s kind of I’m tried to like compartmentalize my life a little bit where school stays at school. Ah, and so that at home I have time for family and we’re playing with my kids spending time with my husband but not doing. The grading papers and inputting grades so much at home. And then prioritize my school work for my classes during nap time or after bedtime like to I ah today I want to get this done during their nap on a Saturday or Sunday and after bedtime.

I’m going to accomplish this on Friday night and then Saturday night we’re going to just enjoy having time together. No like no phones. No anything. We’re just going to visit talk do whatever we want to do like sit outside and and in the summer and enjoy that it’s a nice night. And just be ourselves together.

I love that that you make that time for like you’re like I have my family time I have my work time and it sounds like you’re very intentional with like your calendars like you. You talked about you have your calendar and your kids calendar and you’re planning ahead. So that’s what kind of makes it so you can have a bit more of that balance than if you’re just trying to.

Yeah I just I I don’t like when I’m a big scheduling person especially with special ed I’m looking I just scheduled meetings today for my ieps that are due in December because all of a sudden we get bad weather schools canceled. We wing it. Have something else come up so I’m I’m planning ahead six weeks out at this point for to make sure everything gets done but wanting to make sure that everybody has their part I mean it’s not enjoyable to work. And stuff from the time my eyes open in the morning till the time I fall asleep on the couch at night I want to like make sure that there’s time for my kids time for my husband time for myself. It’s important that I self-care also is important to be able to just debrief. Even if it just literally sit on the couch for 5 minutes after bedtime and not have to do anything or think about anything or just to process my thoughts from my day.

Yeah that’s so important that we have that time to process at the end of the day I find I always need that like I’m kind of an introvert in that I’m like okay I need my like alone like it’s kind of funny because a lot of people think I’m not an introvert but I definitely have it’s like I need that time to. Process things like on my own so I can so relate to that and with all that do you feel like like I heard this statistic I want to share with you and everybody who’s listening that one in 4 teachers work over 60 hours A week isn’t that crazy. Yeah yeah.

But I believe that.

It’s crazy, but it’s believable. It’s like a sad kind of crazy. Do you feel like you fall into that category or no?

I try not to and I think back on like when I was first when I first started teaching when I I would go to school on weekends and I would because oh the copy machine isn’t busy on the weekends. So I would go up on Saturday and Sunday just so that I could get my copying done.

Put everything in like my Monday Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, Thursday’s, Friday’s folders and but I don’t I don’t do that anymore. I’m not going to work on the weekends. That’s my family time. That’s my personal time that’s I don’t get paid to work on the weekend. So therefore.

I need to make sure I’m making use of every minute that I have during my contract time but then and even before I had kids I get to work really early in the morning wait before contract time and I’d stay late at night after contract time grading those papers and making sure that my lesson plans looked absolutely perfect and making sure that every copy was made for from now till forever. Even if I stayed super late one night magically I’d have a whole bunch of copies I needed to make the next day too like I don’t I don’t understand what I who.

What I was doing I wasn’t going through 4 trees a day worth of papers but yet I was always copying always trying to just I was just not using my time as wisely and then after my daughter was born, I would still come in relatively early I’d drop her off a daycare but I’d leave right after school then after she went to bed at night I would work my hours at home. The time that I would be piddling around doing whatever grading papers after school for those late nights I would be doing. Those hours at home after school but now with two kids and I usually get to work about 20 minutes before contract time starts which is the half an hour before school starts and I set an alarm to leave after school at my designated time that. I want to leave it get I set at the very end of contract time. It’s after that. But I spend a half an hour so after school but I send an alarm on my phone so when that alarm goes off I leave cause I have to go get my kids they’re entitled to spending time with me and I want to spend time with them before they need to go to bed. So but i.

Make my time I make the most of that time after school to get done what I need to get done and then also again trying to limit the amount of school work that I’m doing at home. The papers being graded the grades being inputted that kind of stuff I’m limiting that at home because I’m going to use my time at school more wisely and prioritize what needs to be done during my play and time or during that time before and after school making lists of today. These are things that need to be done tomorrow. These are the things. By next week or by Thanksgiving break I need to have all these things done so that I can check them off 1 at a time so trying to not work the 60 hours a week.

So it sounds like probably when you were a new teacher like oh yeah, I was definitely in that category. But now I’ve kind of found these ways like 1 you’ve learned to prioritize your k my family matters like the work’s never truly done but like I’m going to set an alarm and decide that I’m done now. And and you hold yourself to that. So I love that you’re doing that because it’s so easy to get just sucked in to your teacher to do list that you don’t make time for those other things that matter like spending time with your children and making the wine and beer and having that time with your husband.

So what does and I feel like we’ve talked about a lot of how you balance and everything but what does balance in your life mean to you and why is that important.

Well, part of it is just everybody needs to feel that they have their importance in my life. Also if I dedicate every minute of my waking hours to my job. My kids are gonna feel neglected. My husband’s gonna feel neglected. It’s gonna. I’m not going to have a strong bond strong relationship with my family because they’re going to feel like all that I do all the time is work. But I mean it goes the other way too. I can’t dedicate all of my time to my husband and my children in neglect, my work responsibilities or I’m not going to have my things done at work i’m. My review isn’t going to be that great because I’m rolling in at the last minute rolling out as soon as our contact time is completed for the day and I might not have everything done I might be trying to do I mean I don’t really do personal stuff at school. I’m working on making sure I’m doing my school stuff at school do my home stuff at home and just making sure that everything is done but in a responsible day and that everybody’s getting what they need when they need it and I try to keep my work at work and home at home like doing all my paperwork for work at home. Well would it be okay if I brought my basket of unfolded laundry to school with me tomorrow and fold socks during my plane time. No, they’ll probably be frowned upon that I’m that I’m doing home chores at home. So it’s not. I don’t think it’s appropriate that I bring all my work chores home with me if I can’t do home stuff there.

That’s such a good point and I I didn’t really think about it that way but like yeah, you’re like why am I doing my work stuff at home when you’re trying to like have that balance and separation and everything like you discussed before. Do you feel like you already answered that next question. How do you plan your weeks for teaching parenting and working on your additional certification or do you have another answer for that?

No, that was pretty much it the using calendars kind of preplanning using my evenings and weekends for my family and prioritizing during naps that after bedtime to get stuff done here but kind of keeping. Yeah.

And I love that you do that like where you set the alarm and you kind of had that boundary there. But what are some things that you think a lot of teachers might be doing that they could either drastically reduce the amount of time they spend doing it or eliminate it altogether.

One thing that I also did when I was newer at teaching back in my younger days, but when I tried to grade every single paper. They wrote anything on and I felt like well since they took the time to do but I need to take the time to grade the whole thing.

Well, but what I’ve found is like especially with like math assignments like to spot grade if they answered I don’t know 20 addition and subtraction problems I pick 5 or 7 or 10 off of the twenty problems and those are the only ones that I’m gonna grade just. And not like the first twenty necessarily but I I I answer key all circle which 10 I’m going to grade off the assignment because if they can do 10 they can do 20 and it also allows to modify what my kids are doing because for my slow little pokey learners.

It might take them absolutely forever to do 20 addition and subtraction problems. But if I’m only going to grade 10 I might circle the time that I want them to do and not even have them attempt the entire page if I can just direct them to the ones that I want. And I can still demonstrate mastery based on the ones that I’m grading also to allow children like the students to self check some of their work. My kids with spelling They love checking their own here’s here’s a red pencil Now. Check your spelling words again say answer he and and they’re actually.

They’re honest because they they so but that saves me from having to grade the spelling test for the week because they already self- checked it. I’m gonna go back and glance and said it make sure that they didn’t change something or overlook something but also to. Another way to save some kind is to collaborate with colleagues that like I’ll plan the math lesson for the whole school year I’ll play what we’re gonna do in our math class if you’ll plan what we’re gonna do in reading and then here’s the worksheets even that I had planned to use for Matthew’s copies for your class so that. I’m not planning necessarily all the reading all the math all the science all the social studies all the spelling but to like share with each other most people aren’t one like section of a grade level classroom or school where you know you have to do it all on your own. But.

Yeah, yeah.

Work with others collaborate with others be a team plus and get it looks better also because that means that all the classrooms of students are in the same grade level are doing the same exact work that you’re showing that everyone in third grade is then struggling with this concept because they all did the same worksheet. They all had a hard time with it.

We need to figure out a different way to address that topic and but and also it saves you a whole lot of time if you can work with others.

Yeah, it definitely does and I loved both of those things you mentioned the spot checking that you mentioned about like where that saves you time on grading. But I love how you mentioned it with differentiation too. So it kind of like serves a dual purpose because then when you’re Grading. You’re like okay, the students who need to not do as many they do the ones that I’m grading. Then others like you can just have them do more of it because they have the time and that keeps them engaged in practicing those skills more. So I love that and then the collaborative planning you just get to like work all together and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You know.

Yeah, that’s in in our in our building in our district. The teachers are departmentalized so it helps that then you’re only having to teach a couple subject areas. Not all of them.

We only have two teachers per grade level in our building but so you still have several subject areas to cover. But at least they’re they’re able to work together.

Yeah, working together on planning like I did all the subjects too. But if you’re able to work together with the planning and like you know each of you can do like the heavy lifting on a certain part that can definitely save time.

Ah, self-contained classroom. Okay, so the other thing that I wanted to talk about is kind of like the mental load on Teachers. So Even I feel like with teaching. It’s kind of a unique job where a lot of Jobs. You’re able to like. Like okay I’m clocked out I’m out I’m not even thinking about it. You know, but with teaching you know you’re making these relationships with these children and a lot of times. There’s like a mental load. You’re like oh I’m thinking about this student or I’m still kind of like planning this lesson in my head and thinking about how it’s going to go tomorrow or whatever.  And I feel like there’s also big mental load with being a mom. So if you’re like a wife and a mom and a teacher. There’s just a big mental load and I’ve said that a bunch of times but it’s really because there’s such a deep emotional impact. What do you think? What do you do when the mental load feels like it’s just getting to be a lot, to kind of take the weight off?

Just it’s okay to take a break like to say I’m done I can’t do this anymore today I’ve had such a rough day at work I I just need to be done for today I’m going to watch a ridiculous sappy movie on. Hulu or Netflix or Amazon or I I want a bubble bath I’m just going to go fill up my tub with bubbles and I’m going to just soak in there and I don’t want to read a book I’m going to turn on some relaxing music and just relax or go for a walk or read a book or take a nap.

I mean there’s times that I’m just so worn out exhausted from whatever’s been going on whether it’s work my kids my husband my other people in my life or oh the toilet overflowed for the third time and I’m just I can’t handle anymore. I just emotionally I’m ready to just take that nap in when I wake up for my nap I can start fresh again, but it’s okay to do that to shut down and just say here’s my line I’ve I’ve gone over the amount that I can deal with for today and my kids are in bed.

Everybody is taken care of I’m going to bed early and I will wake up tomorrow and have a fresh start on the next day in just my maybe I’ll feel a little more rejuvenated for whatever’s to come or I mean we we in our house. We like to cook a lot too.

We’ll put the kids to bed at bedtime and do a date night at home and make a nice dinner and watch a movie. It’s you know for the mental load is too much but we’re we’re done with work for the week and so we’re going to have a date night at home or a date night out is acceptable also. But. We usually prefer just to stay home and  spend our time here together and at least we’re not spending so much time in the car driving someplace and also it’s okay I thought of when it was looking over your questions like it’s okay to lead the dishes until tomorrow.

You know when when you’re done with dinner at night and you just you had a rough hard day and you’re just mentally exhausted. It’s okay at the dishes sit in the sink until tomorrow. It’s okay to call it good and. They’ll still be there and it’s not going to hurt anything if ah, there’s a plate in the dish or a plate in the sink the next morning when you wake Up. So.

So true and you want to know what I do when I’m like I just can’t do the dishes I just kind of like usually run some water over them. Let the water say so that it’s not so hard to scrape the next day but then I’m like I’m not doing all the scrubbing and everything today because it’s just too much.

Yeah, give him a quick rinse and I will scrub out the pan from the the spaghetti sauce tomorrow I’m I’m just I’m I’ve done enough today.

Ah, ah, yeah, so true and I also agree with sometimes like taking a nap or an early bedtime can honestly be the most. Productive thing you can do not only and not just productive like it’s important for rest. But honestly sometimes I really do feel like it’s the most productive thing because if you try to just keep pushing through. You’re not going to be at your best or if you allow yourself to actually take that rest then the next day you’re going to feel so much better.

I agree. Yeah I mean if I’m worn out and exhausted like that I’m I’m not nice to be around and I and I recognize that that when I’m tired and I’m just emotionally drain I’m not going to be real chipper and happy and say very nice things if you make me upset I I might say something I don’t really mean so therefore it’s but if I just go take that rest for 15 minutes even and then start again.

Yeah, even just like a cat nap. Yeah, and it’s so true and it’s just human nature. It’s like you know when we get like that. It’s just really challenging and a kind of I guess on my next question. It’s a little change of subject but still along the line. So we’ve talked about how work life balance. We’ve talked about these tips but it is challenging. That’s why we have to do a whole podcast episode about this and even we’ve had multiple podcast episodes about it’s good to be able to like talk about it and vent with people have people who get it. But on the flip side. We’ve all It’s also been said that we’re kind of like the sum of the 5 people we spend the most time with so if we’re always around people who are always complaining and we never like try to problem solve kind of like we’re doing here, it may not help us to reach those goals so I kind of want to know like what do you think of that? Would you agree that it’s important to find teacher friends whether they’re inside your building or outside your school building where you can vent? You can complain you can they do get it and you can listen to each other but then they’re also striving to find that balance life and find the solutions to the problem as well.

Yeah I completely agree with that and I have I have friends within my district and I have friends outside of my district I’ve worked in several districts over the years so I have I have people all over the place and I have. A particular group of teacher friends that we all none of us work in the same district anymore. We’ve all branched out to different districts but we still have a group text that we have and we’ve had it since we all work together but you whether we need advice or suggestions about something or.

I love that.

You just seen a funny silly teacher meme that you came across and just hey it’s it’s another Friday but here’s something to make you laugh on this Friday and I mean our the group text goes around. It’s pretty much constant. There’s something pretty much every other day that somebody sends that just.

Just thinking of you and you know here’s here’s a funny or here’s a funny cat video that you know just might make you laugh on this Wednesday night but I feel that if you are willing. To share that you’re looking to vent to somebody. You also’d be willing to listen to what their issues are and sometimes it’s easier to talk to my contacts that are out of my district because I don’t have to worry so much about the confidentiality you’re dropping in if I just say this voice.

Or this girl or this student I’m not worried about them trying to put the pieces together of who I’m talking about whereas in District you kind of have to worry about that more Plus it’s a fresh perspective of somebody who lives elsewhere or teaches elsewhere and what is your district doing in this situation.

And it’s important to focus on solutions not complaining instead of I have a student who we’re really working on finding solutions to things her normal thing is that like she’ll tell me Mike who’s gone. Okay, well your glue is gone well what is your solution like do you need to go to your locker and get another glue stick. Do you need to borrow my glue but it you could add another sentence. My glues gone, can I go get some more or my glue is gone can I please borrow some but instead of just stating what your problem is. What solution do you need and that’s a life skill and teaching special and it’s a skill that we need to work on frequently and it’s a self-help skill but to focus on the solution and that goes professionally to instead of us complaining that oh my gosh we’ve been working on subtraction with.

Borrowing for three weeks now and they’re still just not getting it I’m just so frustrated instead of being frustrated by it. My students aren’t understanding subtraction with regrouping. Go talk to one of those colleagues that is in a different district or the same district or down the hall or a different grade level. How how would you know they’re not getting in how would you teach or how else can I approach this topic because whatever I’m thinking isn’t isn’t connecting with them. So how else would you suggest or a different do. You have some manipulatives. Do you have. Base 10 blocks that they can physically do the regrouping trade in tens for ones and that kind of thing but to focus on how to fix it not just griping and complaining because being griping and complaining all the time is just negative. Nobody wants to be around that all the time.

Yeah, it’s so true and and it’s like we need to like from time to time I feel like we need it. We need to vent and it’s a good release. But it’s when you’re doing it over and over and over again and you’re not looking for the solutions that it can definitely become a problem so you want to make sure you’re surrounding yourself with those people.

Who you’re willing to help lift each other up and that can look from sharing a solution or like you said like just sending cat videos like you know, encouraging each other to keep on keeping on you know, so just keep swimming. So and I think you talked about a lot of great ways that you find that for yourself. Already too. So I love I loved hearing all of that and then you also you joined us back in Wife Teacher Mommy Club I think you trained us right at the very beginning didn’t you is that right? Yeah and how has that also helped you with your just teacher life in general.

Well before the club was even in existence I I spent a lot of money buying resources from the website then all of a sudden. It’s like oh well, you can get them all for free if you joined the club and that was oh well, that’ll save me money in the long run instead of buying all the. Individual things all the time. It’s really the first place I go and I need to find something to address a skill or we’re trying to do a new topic. That’s so first voice I look and the website’s organized enough that I can find what I need fairly quickly. And the Facebook group also helps because it’s just kind of a sounding board if I have a question about something I’m able to I could I could post a question and see what other people are doing to teach something or you have the problem in the classroom and I like just having I have quote unquote friends across the country that that are maybe experience maybe somebody’s experiencing same problems that I am and they live in Connecticut or they live in California it’s not just a outside keys a city Missouri kind of thing but there’s other people that that can give insight. I like not having to search for hours to find a worksheet on a skill. And I can spend that time being either my wife role mommy role or student role. But I know all those many hats that you’re wearing. Yeah I Love so many lots of hats and I love what you mentioned about like the club community and be able to like share together and how all these people they’re using the same resources that you’re grabbing from too.

How do you feel like the club has helped you I I mean I feel like we’ve talked about this but balance your life?

My only thing I was gonna add was that like the coaching calls are great and that you can see other people have similar concerns and issues. So. It’s Normal. It’s not when I’m feeling overwhelmed and stressed other people are too. And Chrissy’s just great with kind of breaking things down and making you see that you’re not, You’re not crazy that it’s okay to feel the way you are and to kind of look at the big picture of things to change your mindset.. It’s not that she’s performing magic with everybody. She’s not like putting everybody in a trance and trying to fix them. It’s just changing your mindset to look at things from above not instead of being so emotionally invested on the spot but look at why the situation is taking place and how how the other parties involved would feel. And if it’s just you’re overwhelmed by the amount of work. Well, how can you work smarter or not harder.

Yes I love I love the coaching honestly, it’s like probably my favorite part and the thing is we’ve been doing resources for like eight and a half years now but we added coaching just in March of this year and honestly it is just I feel like it really takes it to a whole new level because like the resources help save you time. But so coaching is where like the community comes together and we hear what the problems other people are having and you’re like oh I’m having that same problem and you just get to learn from each other and figure out how to like shift your mindset and strategize together. So I love the coaching too.

Yeah I mean I try to put it on my calendar like to make it a point to join like the other night’s call it was after we were done with dinner and the kids were in bed and my husband said what are you even listening to like. And and I said I just I have to listen to coaching I don’t need any help with anything I just need to listen to see if there’s something that somebody else is experiencing that I might deep down be feeling too like okay, whatever. This is my time for me I could go take a bubble bath but instead I’m gonna listen to coaching.

It really makes such a difference like it does for me too and like you said even if you’re like I’m not able to like turn on my camera or bring up a problem myself I’m just going to listen and you get so much just from that too. And if you’re not able to make it live by the way if there’s every time we’re like oh well I have parent teacher conferences I mean if it were parent teacher conference season or whatever at that time or just like your kids have an activity. We do have all the replays too. So I’ll make sure to get you the podcast version because that makes it even easier to listen. So I’ll make sure that.

You have that information when when we’re done here. So what are some of your favorite resources that you’ve used in the club.

Oh I made a whole list today. but but I mean it all started with when I was pregnant and I used the long term sub planner. That’s how I got started with Wife Teacher Mommy in the first place and so and I still I update sub binder every year using that same template that I put together so long ago I have saved to change my schedule of who comes when and what they’re working on, but I still use that we use 2 different levels of the spelling curriculum and what I like about it is that the kids. I have 3 grade levels in there at the same time. But if they look at the person’s death next to them besides that the words are different. The skills are the same or the activities are generally the same so they don’t even know who has what list.  Whatever they they just say oh yep, we’re all working on spelling and when we fill out our planner at the end of the day they all had the same activity that they were doing for the day so it’s easy to differentiate using those different levels. We use the math Riddles. We use differentiated reading passages. We use the fact fluency the fill in the blanks, click math fixing sentences and during Covid times we I printed out the at home learning packets and made copies of those and sent them to my kids. We use some of the holiday pack like the party packs because we like to do yeah we like to do the word searches like as early finisher activities or you know as a fill in for somebody. They’ve worked really hard and got their designated work for the day done. So Now you get to do something kind of fun.

Those are fun.

We’ve done the holiday spelling activities. I tried to do the secret student with my class but just we have too many kids that are in out and they they need far are too much guidance to actually be a secret student because well you’re writing you’re writing to Kelsey today.

And then Kelsey can’t do her work because her ears are perked up because you’re talking about me and so it doesn’t it just doesn’t work with my situation I can see it working in a different classroom with different students in a different setting but with the crew that I have it just isn’t really for us.

There’s definitely like you know you find what works for you and you found a lot that works So I love hearing about that and your experiences.

Was there anything else that you wanted to mention or you mentioned a lot of them?

Yeah, yeah, I think that that’s that that was all that I came across and everything’s in binders and folders on our shelves and a pair today’s like what are you doing I said. Just seeing what all we have over here that’s from Wife Teacher Mommy I need to make a list.

Yeah I love it? Well thanks for doing that and would you encourage those listening today if they’re like on the fence about joining what would you say to them.

I Definitely would suggest joining even just the resources themselves. You can the fact that joining the club you can get as many other resources as you want to download and that you can use I easily spent the cost of the membership in individual resources before the club existed. So it’s it’s worth it for me now and new things are always being added I saw that the new eye spies I think came out yesterday or this morning I remember which the November ones. Yeah.

Yeah, there’s been a lot. There’s November writing prompts reading passages I spy are the team is really up to it’s like every week there’s something coming out for the rest of the year there’s like so much.

So yeah it’s not like it’s segment and there’s absolutely nothing else being added so I just should cancel my membership because there’s nothing new. No, there’s like new things multiple times a week or at least once a week so definitely is worth the cost to not have to. Go back to paying per resource, but I mean I or talking to you talking to Chrissy talking to other people sending messages building connections with people.

Yeah I I basically didn’t owe to all of that I love well I mean and of course I’ll say that that might sound a little biased but I mean I just love the club so much because I feel like it really is getting the most bang for your buck like we’re really trying hard to make it like that’s why I like ok we are just. Pumping out these resources and we added the coaching. We’re planning our winter break educate and rejuvenate I don’t know if you heard who our special guest will be for that. Did you hear yet we got we got Brie back. She’s coming again and it’s gonna be fun and then we’re gonna do another It’s gonna be really fun.

Do you have any words of hope for teachers who are struggling or just anything else that we want to say to our listeners about balancing their life as a Wife Teacher Mommy before we go.

No one’s perfect to keep on being awesome I mean the impact that we make on students every day they’re gonna remember all the times that you love them that you cared for them that you wanted them to be great. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s also okay to say no when you just have too much on your plate. It’s okay to say I really can’t take this on right now when you’re swamped with all this stuff and then they say could you plan the Christmas party no no I’m not planning the Christmas party. Give yourself grace and to celebrate your successes and that you can’t be the best for them if you’re not the best for yourself. So make sure you self care for yourself and take care of take care of yourself first so you can do your best job every day.

Yes.

I absolutely agree with all of that Sarah and I feel like you’ve shared so much wisdom in this episode I hope all of you listening have some awesome tidbits from this interview that you can take so you can feel more balanced in your life. So thank you again. Sarah for coming today. This has been so much fun.

Yeah, thanks for talking to me.