Summer Plans

Even before school let out, I was mentally making a list of things to do over the summer.  Reader's Notebook.  Rearrange room.  Deal with my class library.  I was as ready for the year to be over as my students.  I needed a new start.  I felt like I needed a redo for the year. 

I don't think my year was especially bad.  In face I'm sure that I did ten times better this year than I did the last two, but after attending our IRC Conference in March there were so many things that I wanted to change.  I loved the experience, but I felt that my classroom was inadequate.  I used some ideas, but there were many areas that I just couldn't change in April with two more months to go!

Somewhere at school I typed up that list and saved it or printed it out and stuck it some place I would be sure to find it....  And now I have no idea where it is. 

Probably a good thing, though.  I need to rethink a lot of those plans.

Included in my summer plans was, of course, a lot of reading!  I needed to finish rereading The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mocking Jay.  Then my husband had been bugging me to read Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer for about a month ("before the movie comes out," he kept telling me).  I continually put him off as I was reading this or that, but with so much time during the day I finally took up his offer.  I was hesitant, but couldn't put it down.  Then I turned to my list of informational texts about education (which is what I was SUPPOSED to start with, but had gravitated instead towards my other books).

There are about four of these books I've gained throughout this year and have only had the chance to skim through here and there. I was to read these first before buying any more educational books.  Then, while on Pinterest and searching through other teachers' blogs, I kept noticing one title that kept surfacing.  A title that I hadn't heard of over and over and over again until just recently.  The Book Whisperer.  (Maybe I've had my head in the sand, or just stuck in other books.  I don't know why I haven't heard of it until now.) I decided last night to buy this book on my nook so that I could start reading it right away. 

I was up until about 1:00 am.  So now I'm thinking that my lovely Summer To Do List is probably better off where ever it is.  Although I'm only about 50 pages in, I already have my mind circling around what to do with these ideas.  I mean she's right.  I have to wrap my brain around how I will be implementing some of these ideas.  How will I make this work in my classroom?  How will I convince my administration that this is the way to go address our concerns with RTI and struggling developing readers? How will I make it work for my 50 minute class periods and still include our practically brand new reading text books?   

So, for now I have started a new To Do list.  Many of them are things that just need to be done no matter what as I finish reading The Book Whisperer.  When I have finished reading I will begin to add as I tweak my classroom plan. 

My To Do's

• New classroom set up--figure this out so I can move this around as soon as they let me back in the room (move bookcases to make a reading nook, use sliding boards to display work, back bulletin board for celebration of books read)
• Make my own reader's notebook and use over the summer (started this and have been using and tweaking so that I will know how I want students to utilize theirs and have an example).
• Use the classroom organizer app to catalog my books.  
• Arrange books by subjects--my library is a disaster with books simply put into the shelves where ever they might fit.
•  Make crate seats to put in the reading nook
• Read Read Read!!!