I have a lot of plans for this summer to make the next school year even better, and I thought the best thing to do was blog about them! Accountability, you know? So here goes...
Summer To-Do's
1. Make my plans for writer's workshop! We wrote so much more this year than last year. However, I want my kids to write something every day! So next year, I want to do writer's workshop in my classroom! I really wanted to this year, but just didn't get to it last summer with the class I was taking...excuses, right? Anyway, I have already been reading up about it and taking my notes! Corinna from Surfin' Through Second left me a sweet comment with a couple of suggestions for good resources on my last blog post too!
2. Create materials for Flat Stanley literature circles and a unit to go with Muggie Maggie which I hope we can get! My kids this year loved chapter books and I hope know my kids next year will too! We'll be reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown as a class next year (we did that one this year too), and then doing literature circles using some of Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures. I'm hoping we can get a class set of Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary for next year because that book is just too cute! If you haven't heard of it before, it's about a little girl (Maggie) in 3rd grade who does NOT want to learn to write in cursive. When she tries writing her name in cursive, her teacher says it looks more like "Muggie" than "Maggie" so she decides she will never read or write in cursive. But then Maggie is appointed class messenger and suspects that some of the cursive notes are about her...how will she solve that problem?? It's a super cute book, for my third graders especially, because we work on cursive!
3. Design a class website & new labels and beginning of the year activities to go with our new theme for next year. Our elementary school decided to use a school-wide theme, so I'll be decorating with tie-dye, peace signs, hearts, and smiley faces. Our 2012-2013 school year theme is Peace, Love, & Dogs (our mascot). Any great ideas floating around out there to go with our new theme?
4. Create units, centers, and activities for math and cross-curricular journal prompts for reading! I want to develop lots of fun and useful activities to supplement our math series this year and make our learning even more hands-on! I've already started working on a place value unit! For reading, I'm working on cross-curricular journal prompts. They will each include sentences with grammatical and/or spelling errors, and those sentences just happen to be math problems, gasp! Aren't they always so shocked the first time they see a math problem in reading? I have the prompts for the first week ready and for free download in my TPT store. We use the Scott Foresman Reading Street series, so this set of prompts goes with the story Boom Town by Sonia Levitin. If you use Reading Street as well, I'd love to know what you think about the prompts as I finish up the first unit!
5. Get organized...as much as I can in the midst of the move! I am trying to pack smarter and put together the things that I will need to be together. I have lots and lots of pins on pinterest about organizing your classroom. My mom even has some pinned for me...she knows my weakness! So this summer I want to scour through those and get some ideas for my room!
I think that's a pretty good start...Wish me luck! If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them, and remember, if you have any feedback on the Boom Town journal prompts please let me know what you think! Come back tomorrow for a post about writing in my classroom (what worked this year and what I'll try next year)!
Before I leave and head to work this morning, I'm checking out Jen's awesome giveaway at Hello Mrs. Sykes! You should too! She has reached 200 followers and is saying thanks by teaming up with some other great bloggers to give away lots of items from their TPT and TN stores! Make your way over to her blog and enter to win!
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