Things I hope to implement this year...

1. Give my learners more ownership in the class.  One such way would be for them to write the class newsletter and post to my website as a blog post or Smore for parents to see what we've been doing in the content areas. There are other ways I want to do this too.  I'll have to post them as they happen.  Stay tuned... (the pic is of last year's Smore)
   
2. Inspire my learners to fall even more in love with reading by trying out new authors and genres. When I was at my public library this summer, I saw something that I want to try.  There was a shelve of wrapped (yes, in wrapping paper and ribbon) library books with their barcodes taped onto the wrapping paper.  The books had a short, bulleted  description of the book that was just enough to capture your interest and give you a gist of what it was about.  I thought, how cool is that?  
   
   I am doing that! I also plan to model how to make book trailers and recommendations so when learners read a book, they can get their peers interested in reading it by explaining why they loved it so much.  I just need to remember to stress that we shouldn't give away too many details, much less the ending! I'll post more about this once I begin implementing. 
3. Help my learners develop a passion for and improve their writing skills. I'm currently reading a book called Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi. There will be more to come about this topic in a future post. It will definitely change how I teach writing.  I am so excited about it though!
4. Take flipped lessons to the next level.  I already incorporated flipped lessons to some degree last year.  My learners last year were highly capable of navigating the digital material that I gave them in all of the various formats.  This year, I want to continue to work on making class time more application of the content by giving them some flipped aspects to do on their own time.
5. Get out and about using our school as a tool WAY more often that we did last year.  I just can't wait for this crazy August heat to go away so we can get outside more.  It is unbearable right now.
6. Interactive notebooks, and not just in science! I took a training this summer about it and I have already been practicing how to do it over the summer.  It's just not the same.  I need to see it in action with my class.  I can't wait! 
   

There are of course tons of other things I want to do, but I decided to keep this post short and sweet.  The final one that I want to add, unofficially, is to intentionally share what I'm doing through my blog.  I want to have some kind of record, that I created, of my growth and development over the year. I did not do such a great job of this last year, as I was trying to juggle too many things at once.  Blogging will be a priority this year.

Google Classroom

Over the winter break, I set up Google Classroom for each subject in my classroom.  I really want to get away from learners submitting work in paper form as well as me making paper copies for them to use.  I also thing this is a great way for me to monitor students' work status and submission from anywhere (without having to lug a bunch of papers around).

Today was the first day of my learners using Google Classroom, but I think they are VERY excited about it!  They are also really good at navigating the site, since we use technology so much in my classroom.  I can't wait until they start submitting assignments!  I wish I could have had Google Classroom when I was in school.

I love getting to learn, explore, and implement all of these new technology tools that I am exposed to.  Thanks Ms. Knight for showing me this awesome tool!


This is what it looks like (see pics).