I love October. I fall for all things pumpkin and leaves and warm coffee. The inspirational books from this month were very deliberate, and yet they all sort of fell into place naturally. I am going to be reading Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes with my classes this month in preparation for her author's visit to Kalamazoo in November. We will be writing ghost personal narratives while studying this mentor text, and also learning skills in scene writing, dialogue, snapshots, and imagery. Some other things I am excited about this month:

• My husband and my birthday are on the same day this month.

• Michigan Council for Teachers of English is this month! I am presenting on mentor texts and receiving an award!

• I am presenting in my district about mentor texts this month.

• Jason Reynolds Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks comes out on the 8th!

• The FIRST marking period of the year comes to a close this month.

• The FIRST round of parent/teacher conferences is this month.

• I speak at Western Michigan University to a group of pre-service teachers this month.

• Happy Halloween!

September is one of those months that everyone has an opinion about. Either people love the start of a new academic year, or they miss the days of summer where things were a little bit slower and more carefree. I fall into both camps; it is a time to reminisce and a time to jump back into routine. September is about re-finding your rhythm. I love the inspiration from this month’s books, and also the idea of of holding onto the ideas of empathy, perspective, and adventure as I get ready to start year 10 teaching middle school.

Get ready with me for the new school year! I love my bullet journal for keeping my general life focused and for daily morning pages; however, I am going to try to also use a bullet journal for my teacher planning this year. I end up always writing my teacher plans, dreams, and schemes all over the place. This could be in countless random notebooks, my personal bullet journal, and on my little clipboards. My goal is to put all of these things in one location-including my meeting notes-so the end of the year reflection will be easier and I will stay more organized. I also want to take much of my teacher planning out of my personal bullet journal and use that more for life goals, personal reflections, and other writing projects. I recently posted my August Plan With Me for my personal bullet journal, and if you don’t know where to start, here are some amazing Teacher Bullet Journals to follow on my Bullet Journal Round-Up Post. It is important to note that my spreads in this post are not all the way filled in yet. Once our calendar/contract are finalized, I can add in some dates and marking period cut-offs to my schedules. Also, like in my classroom, I like to leave some things blank because I find that there is something about filling things in as you go that is part of the bullet journal process. I think it encourages reflection at the end of one marking period to stop and reflect, and then go on to plan the next six weeks. I will post these as they are updated throughout the year.

it’s time to start planning to return to a routine. If you are like me, I rarely stop thinking about school; however, the start of August makes me pause and appreciate the small freedoms that happen when time off is happening. Things like morning coffee runs, errands to Target and the grocery store around 10am, experimenting with cooking different dinners for my husband (he is the main chef in our house), and doing work in front of the TV at home with my husky-lab curled up nearby. August is about gratitude. I found myself particularly grateful in front of a bonfire the other night on our anniversary…so I tried to recreate the image in my mind with this month’s cover.