December 2015

It's December already! I've just finished my final exams and I'm finally able to decompress, destress and enjoy the season. There's something that feels a little less magical for me this December - maybe it's becuase there's no snow in Toronto (last year we had 20cm of snowfall just on December 11th). My Hannukah and Christmas shopping are done, everything's wrapped, our tree is up, Christmas parties are scheduled, but something still feels different. Anyway, I just wanted to cover some themes that happen in December in both my life and my studio, now that I have a little more time to focus.

Studio Christmas Party

This year I had my second annual Christmas party on the first Sunday of December. I have mixed feelings about calling it a Christmas Party so in following years I might opt to call it our Winter party. That being said, not all of my kids celebrate Christmas. I invited all my students over for 3 hours and we decorated sugar cookies, watched The Grinch Stole Christmas (live action) and decorated some ornaments. I'm going to start thinking about how I can make it less Christmas-themed for next year, just for the sake of being more inclusive. I think it can be done!

Food we served : pre-made gingerbread cookies for decorating, popcorn and smarties for the movie, plus juice, water and hot-chocolate.

Music we listened to : Holiday music provided by my Songza app!

Crafts for ornament making: I bought 2 ornament-making packs from Michael's, which were 50% off in November so I snagged them then. I also bought some clear baggies for students to take home ornaments and cookies.

Pacing : Cookie decorating for the first hour, movie started after cookies were done, and finished up with ornaments/colouring during pick-up time.

Studio Holiday Hours

I've had some anxiety about sorting my students out with up coming holidays. I don't like taking an extended amount of time off because my students do forget things, but I also want to meet everyone's needs as I can. I've had some parents ask for extra lessons during the break and some parents wanting to pull out from lessons for a bit longer. Ultimately, I decided to take about 10 days off to give myself time to recouperate, recharge, enjoy family time and let my students also rest up.

So, I've decided to take December 23rd to January 5th off !!!

Most of my student's payments end before the 23rd anyway and I'm giving parents the option to pay for a single lesson to round out the month if they'd like to squeeze in the last lesson before the break. They are of course welcome to prepay for January. On that note, I'm not changing my schedule or really making any big shifts in the new year. I'm considering taking more students at the end of January.

Reciepts

I'm also preparing reciepts for 2015 for my students to take home this week. I know that I could do that during tax season, but this way I can organize my own records based on a calendar year!

So there we go! I'll do a 2015 reflection post once I'm finished teaching on the 22nd.

Happy December!