A few years ago, I read that more and more people are typing long phrases into Google and many are even typing whole sentences. I was glad to read that since I have pretty much always typed complete sentences into Google, and it is definitely getting better at understanding me.

Today I typed in "quick interesting ways to divide students into small groups." Not a complete sentence, but pretty long, and Google gave me some great results. 

I've spent hours over the past week brainstorming how to do this on my own. Since I did my teacher observations last semester, I've decided I need to get a lot better at doing group work. My favorite classes to observe involved a lot of group work, and those teachers also arranged groups in a randomized way so that students had to actively move around the room and be with new people instead of with the friends sitting near them. The best teacher I observed did this through giving students laminated cards with different animals from Australia on them (he was an Australian teacher). I thought about doing this with American animals, but let's face it - bison are not nearly as interesting and cute as kangaroos and koalas. So I needed to think of ways to arrange groups in two ways:

1. In a creative way for spontaneous in-class dividing
2. In a mathematically sound, quick way for groups that I wanted to pre-assign before class

I literally spent 2 hours at lunch one day writing numbers in a notebook, counting, erasing, and still not figuring out how to get pre-assigned groups with different combinations of students with no 2 students being in the same group again. I guess this is why I'm an English teacher, not a math teacher.

Today, I had the ultimate brainstorm - use the internet and pull from other teachers' ideas. Jackpot! I now have a great formula for pre-assigning combinations of groups from Natalie Houston and clever in-class solutions for assigning groups from Paul and the Girl Scouts of Northern California. My favorite is to use a deck of cards to split students in class. This is fun, takes almost no prep on my part, and allows me to quickly divide up to 14 groups, which is definitely necessary in my big oral English classes. The internet (and Google) make teaching so much easier!

What are some great teaching ideas you've found through Googling?

One of the best things about being a teacher is getting a long summer vacation.

One of the worst things about being a teacher is getting a long summer vacation.

This is me before the summer:

I have so much free time coming up! So much that I can get done! I'll finish all of my lesson plans for next semester, right down to the Powerpoints and quizzes, so I can do minimal prep work during the semester. I'll clean every inch of our apartment, including underneath the stovetop (which probably hasn't been cleaned since it was installed). I'll organize old paperwork and clean up my electronic files, deleting what I don't need anymore, and scanning in any new items. I'm going to write blog posts and even create a schedule for blogging during the school year. I'm going to be so productive!

This is me during summer:

Well, I've finished watching TV and I've played Bejeweled for awhile. I should probably get started on lesson planning, but a nap sounds so much better...

Sometimes too much free time is a bad thing. It makes me lazy. I can't really wrap my head around the fact that in about 15 days, I'll have to start waking up at 5 a.m. again so I can study for my master's in the morning and then work all day.

To be fair, I did clean under the stovetop last week and I am writing this blog post right now, so that's something, but I need to get motivated if I want to accomplish anything else during this summer vacation. At the very least, I need to get my lessons organized for this semester, though realistically, that will probably happen in between naps and Downton Abbey...

How do you unwind during summer break? Have you found any methods for motivating yourself to get work done during long vacations from school?