Jumping Back In

It has been a while since I blogged! So long, in fact, that I am almost embarrassed. It is a goal of mine to get back into blogging. Blogging helped me reflect on what I do and made me feel accountable for my goals. I need that now.

I have big plans for next year! I am working on getting my skeleton of the year put together. I am also going to try out a few new routines in my class.

New routine goals for ELA classes:

Writing Prompt Monday - I am moving away from my CWS (Correct Word Sequence) prompts weekly. I am going to do more prompts from my books Unjournaling and Rip the Page. I am hoping I get more authentic writing exploration. I think I would also get better "build up" from the prompt stories. I really want to do a mix of using Google Docs and handwriting journals. I do think I will do a CWS prompt every other week and have them type it. 

• What are you reading Wednesday - This is where I will be book talking a few books after independent reading. I eventually want my students to take this over. I would like them to book talk a video for the other ELA class and their own. 
• Get Back to Religious Independent Reading Daily - I slowly let go of the importance of my independent reading last year and it was hard on my students. I had students reading the same book all year when the year before I had my students reading more books than they ever had before. I need to keep that time holy again.
• Practice our spontaneous conversation skills with text by all typing on a shared Google Doc for a class or two. I want my students to be able to communicate effectively in multiple situations and they need to improve their typing speed. I honestly say that I can thank social media (IQC and MSN Messenger) for my typing speed. I want that for my students. Keyboarding skills, to me, are not a dying skill.
• Using ReadTheory.com - I have never used this program before but I am excited about it. By the looks of it and my time playing with it, I see its value. I also know that there is a big push next year for working on reading comprehension. I am having one day a week where I want my students to do 1-2 article on ReadTheory as part of class.
• Reading Response Journals - I am raising the bar of expectations on my reading response journals. I am expecting my students to show me more support. I am also going to show them more support in these by doing more modeling of what support would look like. My students are at a place where they are at least having an opinion (which took a while for them to commit to) but now they need to give me some reasons.

New routine goals for Math classes:

• Homework Journals - I am having my students do all of their homework in a composition notebook so I no longer have to fight them on having lined paper. I also am making dividers for these based on what Sarah Carter's Math=Love Blog. These dividers will have the chapters, the lessons, vocabulary, and big concepts. Just for time and effort, I am only doing the dividers in my Pre-Algebra class since it is my largest class. I want to see some proof of concept before I spread them out. But for every class, I will allow my students to use their homework on their tests which I used to just have them use just their notes. I want them to have more examples of problems than what we did in class if they get stuck. Since I am not making dividers for my Geometry or 8th Grade Math class, I will probably just have them put in sticky notes to mark where chapters start. I also will use the Homework Journal to add any notes that I couldn't fit into my guided notes.
• Math Warm-ups - Since I like to look at their homework before we move on, I am going to give my students a math warm-up problem. This will give me time to correct their homework before moving onto the next lesson (class size of 1-2 students). I also will be able to do corrective feedback and assign a redo more quickly. I thought about just correcting the Homework Journals weekly, but that is too long for my students to be away from a concept. 
• Math Cheat Sheet - I turned my multiplication chart into a more useful tool. Everything I used to have students place on sticky notes, I have now put into one document. 
• Math Reflection Questions - After my formal evaluation last year I realized that I never bring the class together or let my students reflect on the days lesson (other than homework). I am working this into my math class. They will answer one of these question.
• What did you learn today?
• What do you still need help with?
• What was the easiest part of the lesson?
• What was the hardest par of the lesson?
• Summarize how to ____

I would like to find a way to add some reflection of my ELA classes over the concepts we are doing as well. I may just use sticky notes for that. I am not sure. I do need to increase my students' reflection of classes. 

I am excited for the new year even though it is summer! I am also hoping my Donor's Choose Project gets funded as I have never put one of those together either. I would love to have a Wreck This Journal Day in both ELA classes. I think the reading comprehension and writing skills that would be learned in those would be invaluable! I am also excited to have found the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens as that will be a great social skills resource!