Archive for June 2018

WOW! What a weekend! After Connor’s graduation ceremony Friday morning, we moved on to dinner and his overnight school lock-in. Already tired, we headed to Dallas to grab dinner at Rodeo Goat (awesome burgers!) and to the American Airlines Center to see Maroon 5. We were within 5 seats of the stage and the boy was so excited. After a short overnight, we returned home to nap and get him packed for New York. He hit the plane about 30 minutes ago.

In the meantime, I’ve been camped at Starbucks working on various Summer projects and waiting for 9:00. I’ve had a great time focusing on family, but I’m looking forward to changing my focus to myself and professional development this week.

Today, I begin my week-long training with WeTeach_CS to ultimately take my Computer Science certification. I’m quite excited to continue my training so I can take my certification test early in July. I’m going to try and post more on Twitter this week so I can rebuild that muscle for the upcoming school year.

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks waiting for my son’s graduation venue to open. I thought I would take a few minutes to cover some odds and ends.

First, I’ve received a few texts and emails from others teachers and administrators this week. They weren’t anything stressful or time-sensitive, but it was nice to have that connection back to the school year. I do feel somewhat isolated and given that this is my first experience with having a “summer off,” it was nice.

My Ron Clark Academy shirt came in! After my trip there last month, I wanted to buy a shirt. But it was a week before payday, and had to order a shirt online after we returned. I’ll post a pic of it up on Twitter sometime soon.

I completed two books on my student reading list: Ready Player One and Holes. I’m planning on recording my reviews for them sometime in the next couple of weeks. I want to do them as video reviews at locations related to the books’ themes. Hopefully Ready Player One will be at an arcade and Holes will be at a zoo in the lizard habitat.

The biggest thing going on this week is my younger son’s graduation from high school, which begins in 2 hours! It’s been a whirlwind of flexible schedules, finals, parties, elementary school walks, cleaning, cooking, and yardwork, His big party was Thursday evening, so today should be much easier to manage. Finishing my first year in education, visiting his old elementary school, and getting him ready for graduation has made me appreciate how far I have come in the last 6 years – starting with the idea of going back to school and culminating in this amazing profession I’m a part of now.

Next week begins my first full round of PD classes that will keep me busy for the next week. More on that starting Monday…

Yesterday, I wrote about my organizing my personal life and making the transition to my first Summer break as a teacher. Today, I want to cover my professional goals.

Organizing My Classroom Curriculum – This is probably my most daunting task for the Summer. I spent most of the last year using items and then throwing them in a pile thinking that I would organize them later. Later is here now and it’s time to pay the check. I have also inherited a bunch of amazing activities from another teacher and need to go through those items and integrate them where I want.

My current plan is to use the TEKS to organize everything. I’m not ready to write about my challenges from the past school year yet, but a physical touchstone regarding the TEKS should help me be more successful this year.

I have been looking for an organization system for every activity and I love this one, but it requires a lot of expensive materials to implement. Instead of using project cases, I’ll just start with a few plastic document folders and see if it gets me close to what I ultimately want.

The other challenge is organizing Google Drive. I’ve decided this is just not going to happen this Summer. Given Google’s detailed search capabilities, I’m just going to wait until I’m ready to go paperless, which is a few years down the road.

Redecorating My Classroom – I limped through the year with a hodge-podge of decorations, but was never really happy with how the room looked even though it was functional. Also, there were a few items I tried that just didn’t click with me and the students such as personal weekly goals. I threw almost every idea I had into the room and I want to cut back and refocus.

Professional Development – I’m currently signed up for about 140 hours before the next school year. I’m doing math, science, social studies, and computer science. Some friends and colleagues have warned me that I may be taking on too much, but almost all of it relates directly to my classroom, so I think it will help me be less stressed during the school year.