I've cleaned my room (a little), made the handout to pass out to students (rules/procedures/supply list...), revisited some books and still reading "Teach Like A Pirate".
What's left? Paint chalk boards and walls, new curtains, bulletin boards.
We have summer school for 6 weeks and then the classrooms are closed for maintenance, waxing, etc. In fact, I came in one day too soon and the floor wasn't finished, could have fooled me, it was prettier than I've ever seen it but they wanted to do another coat.
We are a little spoiled with wonderful staff and parent volunteers.
We are starting a block schedule with classes lasting one semester, 80 minutes a day. I'm really pleased we will have classes for 80 minutes now. I've tried to learn a lot about block schedule over the last year but if anyone has any tips feel free to share. I purchased some books to help out "Patty Paper Geometry", "Accessible Math", "Algebra I Station Activities" to name a few, most books I've read are suggestions from Sarah @ Math=Love which have really helped, thanks Sarah.
Goals: Make math meaningful, I can hear my Head of School asking, yea but how will you measure that....I'm thinking, I'm thinking, daily themes, so far I have •Mathersize Mondays from Michael Serra,
•Tinker Tuesdays,
•Think New Thursdays (mindset) and •Funny Fridays, which will include funny things I've read, riddles, and student will be allowed to share there "Math Oriented" vines, pins, instagrams...after I check them out.
That just leaves Wednesday and I just keep coming back to hump day. My thoughts are no matter what I call them the students will call it hump day so it has to be something they decide and take ownership of. I get four and they get one, that's fair right?
Back to goals....
•Adding pictures to my blog, hyperlinks, etc and doing one blog a month. I really hope to do biweekly but I tend to bite off more than I can chew so I'm just gonna nibble for now.
• Counting circles although I may rename it for the high schoolers (10 minutes a day suggested by Iamamathnerd).
•I want to have students work in groups everyday. There is so much I can add, let's end with
•bi-weekly progress report. Parents and students can go on-line to check grades but I'd like to send a hard copy to parents since the classes will be one semester.
Okay, thank you Sarah at Math=Love for blogging everyday this summer. I have always enjoyed your blog but this summer was really a lot of information.
What are your goals for the 2014-2015 school year?
